Family Involvement in the Firm, Family-to-Business Support, and Entrepreneurial Outcomes: An Exploration

Results of a survey of 211 founders of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) indicated that family involvement in the firm was indirectly related to four entrepreneurial outcomes (business performance, strategic planning, satisfaction with business success, and commitment to remain self-employed) through family-to-business support, suggesting a particular benefit of the intertwining of family and business in family firms. SME founders who owned family firms experienced higher levels of family-to-business support than those who owned nonfamily firms. These results support our proposed alignment of the social support perspective of well-being and resiliency with the family embeddedness perspective of the family-business relationship.