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1. Introduction
Despite the increased acknowledgment of the heterogeneity of family firms (Miller et al., 2018), this acknowledgement does not extend to the heterogeneity of the context in which family firms operate (James et al., 2020; Memili and Dibrell, 2019), with context often taken-for-granted or invisible (Wright et al., 2014). This is surprising given that the critical influence of “context” on new venture creation and entrepreneuring practices is well recognised (Welter, 2011; Welter and Gartner, 2016; Baker and Welter, 2018). In addition, family business research to date has been dominated by a focus on American and European family businesses (Luo, 2019; Sharma and Chua, 2013, Krueger et al., 2021), where the traditional family is becoming less prevalent with weakening social bonds between family members (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003; Harrison and Leitch, 2018). Such changes in family structure and relationships, which are not evident to the same extent in all cultures, influence venture creation and outcomes, thus motivating family business researchers to identify family and firm characteristics associated with the entrepreneurial behaviour of family firms (Eddleston et al., 2012; Zahra et al., 2004). Entrepreneurial behaviour has been researched at both the individual and firm level (Baron and Tang, 2011; Clinton et al., 2020). At the firm level, entrepreneurial behaviour is defined as “a set of activities and practices by which individuals at multiple levels autonomously generate and use innovative resource combinations to identify and pursue opportunities” (Mair, 2005, p. 51).
Family entrepreneurship research is interested in the entrepreneurial behaviours of family, family members and family businesses (Bettinelli et al., 2014). Despite the wealth of literature examining the entrepreneurial behaviour in family firms (Eddleston et al., 2012; Naldi et al., 2007; Cruz and Nordqvist, 2012; Nordqvist and Melin, 2010; Zellweger and Sieger, 2012; Zellweger et al., 2012a, b), the debate as to whether family firms are truly entrepreneurial continues. Moreover, little is known about the entrepreneurial behaviour of next generation family members (Nordqvist et al., 2013), their entrepreneurial tendencies and factors enabling or hindering such tendencies (Craig and Salvato, 2012), whether manifesting in the incumbent business, or through the use of inheritance to fund other businesses (Zellweger et al., 2012b). While researchers have identified...