Business Commons^™

Do Smart Phones Bring Us Closer? A Family Life And Vacation Perspective, Heather Kennedy-Eden

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Relationships developed in families are crucial because these bonds play an integral part in learning how to function and interact in society. In the past, these bonds were strengthened by spending leisure time together as a family but now smart phone technology provides opportunities for individual entertainment, connecting on social media, and spending time physically together while being emotionally separated. This research looks at this issue from a systems theory perspective, conceptualizing families as open, self-regulating social systems with the smart phone being a technical system within the family system. The smart phone acts as a conduit between immediate family …

Theories To Define And Understand Family Firms, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

My earlier chapter in this volume on the four phases of learning in family firms relies on some important theories about the nature of family firms and how they differ from non-family firms. This chapter explains them briefly.

Case Study: Transfield And Tenex: Endurance And Weakness In Two Migrant Family Businesses In Australia, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Transfield is one of Australia's most prominent construction companies. The name itself: "trans" meaning across and "field", which suggests open spaces, reflects the firm's origins as a venture founded by two Italian emigrants, Carlo Salteri and Franco Belgiorni-Nettis, who crossed huge distances to Australia before establishing their own firm.

Revisiting Women's Entrepreneurship: Insights From The Family-Firm Context And Radical Subjectivist Economics, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to study women's entrepreneurship from the family-firm context and radical subjectivist (RS) economics. While women's entrepreneurship is a long-standing topic of research interest, there have been calls for more theory-oriented research and research which takes context factors in women's entrepreneurship seriously. The paper responds to this by using an RS's view of economics as a theoretical lens to consider women's entrepreneurship in family firms.
Design/methodology/approach - The paper briefly reviews the potential of the family-firm context for examining women's entrepreneurship in a non-reductive fashion, then outlines radical subjectivism (RS). The three main …

The 4-L Framework Of Family Business Leadership, Mary Barrett

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The 4-L framework for learning family business leadership is a practical model based on empirical research into the learning experiences of second or later generation family business owners who attained the CEO role in the family firm. The strength of this framework is that it takes account of:

• The special characteristics of firms run primarily by blood-related members of a single family;
• The paradoxes family firm leaders have to manage in combining two conventionally unrelated systems: business and family.