The family and the home play a crucial role in influencing entrepreneurial processes and aspirations, and are, in turn, affected by the entrepreneurship of family members.
Such complex interactions take a variety of forms, including family businesses, home-based businesses, and entrepreneurial households. The Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship is active across all of these forms and we're strongly engaged with extending understanding of this vital topic.
Our current research & projects
Entrepreneurial household
Sara Carter studies rewards and lifestyles within the entrepreneurial household. She leads the Hunter Centre’s partnership in the ESRC co-funded Enterprise Research Centre (in collaboration with Warwick, Aston and Imperial business schools). She explores the economic well-being of entrepreneurial households.
Aniela Kuhl’s current PhD research looks at the concept of direct and indirect financial rewards that can be accrued from running a family business. She's taking an entrepreneurial household as the unit of analysis and considers how its members adjust their financial rewards in order to satisfy personal and business requirements.
Johan de Borst PhD research focus is 'entrepreneurial rewards, constructing economic well-being in entrepreneurial households'
Family business
We've researched many aspects of the family-owned firm, such as:
- resource use and performance (Jonathan Levie)
- family firm networking, health and safety in the family firm, and organisational renewal (Sarah Dodd)
- Katerina Nicolopoulou has carried out studies exploring cross-cultural diversity, and gender, in family businesses
- Niall MacKenzie further strengthens the Hunter Centre’s team studying family business, and additionally delivers the centre’s teaching in this area. He's a member of the Academic Advisory Board for the Institute of Family Business’ Research Foundation.
- Niall MacKenzie and Jonathan Levie are co-investigators on the Institute for Family Business Research Project on family branding
- PhD researcher Steve Gaklis is presently researching cognitive and behavioural expression in entrepreneurial approaches to succession among dynastic family firms
- Martin Gannon’s PhD research focuses on the dynamics and influences of philanthropic family foundations
- Alistair Beckett's PhD work is looking at the dyadic relationships between family businesses and their advisors
- Eko Suhartanto's PhD studies focus on corporate entrepreneurship within listed family businesses in Indonesia
- The Hunter Centre is also engaged STEP (trans-generational family business case-study development in 37 nations, led by Babson College, USA).
Role of the home
The role of the home in entrepreneurship is a novel and under-studied area. Our research contributions include analyses of home-based businesses (Sara Carter), and the role of the home in family firms (Sarah Dodd).
Our key publications
Entrepreneurial Households & Home-based Businesses
Alsos, G. Carter, S. and Ljunggren, E. (2014) Kinship and Business: How Entrepreneurial Households Facilitate Business Growth. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Available Online-First at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2013.870235
Mason, C. M., Carter, S., & Tagg, S. (2011). Invisible businesses: the characteristics of home-based businesses in the United Kingdom. Regional Studies, 45(5), 625-639.
Carter, S. (2011). The Rewards of Entrepreneurship: Exploring the Incomes, Wealth, and Economic Well‐Being of Entrepreneurial Households. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 35(1), 39-55.
Family Businesses
Levie, J., & Lerner, M. (2009). Resource mobilization and performance in family and nonfamily businesses in the United Kingdom. Family Business Review, 22(1), 25-38.
Anderson, A. R., Jack, S. L., & Dodd, S. D. (2005). The role of family members in entrepreneurial networks: Beyond the boundaries of the family firm. Family Business Review, 18(2), 135-154.
Dodd, S. D. (2011). Mapping work-related stress and health in the context of the family firm. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 12(1), 29-38.
Dodd, S.D., with Vasilis Theoharakis and Angelo Bisignano, (2014) “Organizational Renewal in Family Firms” (2014) International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation 15 (2) 67–78
Dodd, S.D. with Sarah Jack and Alistair Anderson (2013) "Being in Time, and the Family Owned Firm" Scandinavian Journal of Management (29(1) pp35-47
Women in Turkish family businesses : drivers, contributions and challenges Karatas-Ozkan Mine, Erdogan Aybuken, Nicolopoulou Katerina, International Journal of Cross Cultural Management Vol 11, No. 2, pp. 203-219 (2011)
Cross-cultural perspectives of diversity within family businesses Karatas-Ozkan Mine, Nicolopoulou Katerina, Inal Gozde, Ozbilgin Mustafa, International Journal of Cross Cultural Management Vol 11, No. 2, pp. 107-111 (2011)
