FamilipreneurshipA Comprehensive Approach of Entrepreneurship

SM Mijanur Rahman*Corresponding Email: mizanbkb@gmail.com

Abstract: This paper is a conceptual argument to promote Familipreneurship as a comprehensive approach of entrepreneurship. ‘Familipreneurship’ means entrepreneurship of a family as an entrepreneurial unit, which enables them to transform their individual, and collective scattered capitals (Financial, Human, Social, Knowledge, Cultural, and natural capitals) into performing capitals to maximize wealth. This paper primarily investigated the power and capabilities of indigenous business family those who are doing business from generation to generation without any or less academic qualification or formal entrepreneurial education through observing for ten years as part of professional responsibilities, then reviewed existing literature extensively to construct a theoretical understanding and relates them with existing theories. Based on real life experience and extensive literature reviews, this paper is both exploratory and explanatory attempting to describe the notion of Familipreneurship and its implication. This paper showed family ties are the crucial factor in family enterprise, and it is an attempt to outline the special characteristics of Familipreneurship. Existing researcher are concentrated on the business hour activities of family enterprise and individual aspects of entrepreneurs and ignore family dynamics behind the shadow but Familipreneurship proposes families as a single unit and considered their 24*7 activities to solve the unresolved questions. Key Words: Familipreneurship, Familiness, Social Capital, Family Enterprise

* SM Mijanur Rahman is a Banking professional having extensive experience as branch manager of both public and private bank. Presently working as branch manager of a private commercial bank in Bangladesh.

Introduction:

This paper is a conceptual argument to promote Familipreneurship as a comprehensive approach

of entrepreneurship. ‘Familipreneurship’ means entrepreneurship of a family as an

entrepreneurial unit, which enables them to transform their individual, and collective scattered

capitals (Financial, Human, Social, Knowledge, Cultural, and natural capitals) into performing

capitals to maximize wealth. Familipreneurship denotes entrepreneurship of a family as an

entrepreneurial unit, which enables them to transform their individual and collective scattered

capitals into performing capitals to maximize wealth (Rahman, 2011). Familipreneurship refers

to the entrepreneurial spirit running through the family as a whole and not just confined to a

single individual. The promotion of Familipreneurship will create a natural environment of

transferring inherited knowledge, skill and important lesson and experience across the

generations. This courageous collective effort will enable them to be blended together to reach

their goals. Familipreneurship is an interactive and evolving phenomenon. Internal relationships

(bonding), relations with other communities (bridging) and relations with their natural and

institutional environment (linkage) are the largest social capital of humanity, which remains

mostly unused, even undetected. Familipreneurship intends to utilize social capitals through the

matrix relationships of individuals and family with society, nation, and the world. Utilization of

social capitals would accelerate the process of wealth optimization through maximizing

performing capitals by accumulating scattered and unused resources for shaping the future

towards an entrepreneurial planet.

Human civilization cannot exist without the family. Family is not a place; it is an institution.

Whole is greater than the sum of its parts; a group is more powerful than the sum of same

individuals. As a group, internal bondage among the family members are highly defined and

often determined by moral obligation. Kinship is the largest social capital, which is the

foundation of our social life. Family as an entity is the oldest, largest in number, longest in

existence organization of human history. Families are unique among social systems

(Giudice,Peruta, and Carayannis 2011) and future generations carry on their ancestor’s

knowledge and experience of togetherness both culturally and arguably, genetically. Ties within

a family is so powerful, effective and long lasting that family as an organization throughout the

history exists without any oral or written constitution or standard norms. Matrix relations among

the family members enable them to combine and best utilize their personal and collective

capitals. Surprisingly, little study has been made of the family’s role. (Heck et al., 2006). Aldrich

and Cliff (2003) have more equally focused on both the family and business (Stafford et al.,

1999).

Researches on Family Enterprise showed family enterprises outperform than non-family

counterpart (Morck and Yeung 2004) but the reasons are still unknown (Stanley 2010. Family

business literature has developed the term familiness to denote the set of resources and

capabilities to differentiate between family and non-family business (Habbershon & Williams,

1999; Pearson, Carr & Shaw, 2008 ; Moores and Craig 2005; Nordqvist 2005a). Sources and

types of familiness are yet to be understood (Chrisman et al. 2005b). However, Familiness deals

with the business activities of a business family but Familipreneurship deals with the 24/7

activities of a family from socio-economic perspective as a concept unto itself. It also suggests

that promoting Familipreneurship will inherently promote our indigenous knowledge and culture

from generation to generation creating social capital.

Methods/Methodology:

A field study was conducted in Chak Bazar, Dhaka and Khatunganj, Chittagong the two largest

wholesale markets in Bangladesh and closely observed as part of their business process for a

period of ten years. Characteristics of the venture creation experience are examined, and

underlying dimensions are analyzed and empirically investigated. In-depth interviews were held

with the founders of family enterprise and other members of that family with subsequent follow-

up visits. Collected subjective experiences and data were analyzed objectively and closely

monitored enterprise creation and development process. Long discussion and interaction were

held to capture the experiences of the family members that have rarely been addressed in

entrepreneurship (Gartner & Birley, 2002).

An iterative ‘back and forth’ approach between data and existing theories (Van Maanen et al.

2007) followed. This method of comparison (Eisenhardt, 1989) and inductive theory building as

evidence is accumulated overtime. In line with Charmaz’s (2006) explanation of the social

constructionist approach to theorizing reality is not considered as singular and concrete, thus

insights into what the entrepreneurs believe is real for them were sought. By focusing on the

real-life experiences of the entrepreneurs in context of family enterprise creation, it becomes

possible to provide enough evidence using both “power and proof” quotes (Pratt, 2008). Thus,

rather than using deductive reasoning to formulate hypotheses, an explicit aim was to develop

insights from the subjective experience with objective data in line with existing theory.

Discussions:

Findings show that the major portions of surveyed markets are dominated by ‘Kuttis’ and

‘Sowdagors’ (‘Kutti’ and ‘Sawdagar’ are called locally to some indigenous business families).

They are mostly illiterate but uphold strong entrepreneurial knowledge and skills inherited from

their families/ancestors. Therefore, they are dominating the context from generation to

generation. Most of them do not have any formal entrepreneurial education or training; only

reason behind their success is Familipreneurship; entrepreneurship gained through family

environment. Their practical knowledge of enterprise is gathered through ‘doing’, although even

the exceptions do not complete their secondary level education, and then starts enterprise or

venture with other family members. In many cases founder of a family enterprise did not have

any formal education let alone enterprise education, but they did very well in their job. Once a

family enterprise is created, the next generation carries this on because of inherent

Familipreneurship. If next generation fails to carry on, then easily they can start their alternatives

because of their entrepreneurial qualities created through Familipreneurship.

This paper primarily examined the concept of Familipreneurship and its uniqueness based on

secondary data then investigated the power and capabilities of indigenous business families those

who are doing business from generation to generation without any or less academic qualification

or formal entrepreneurial education to relate the notion of Familipreneurship. Based on real life

experience and extensive literature reviews, this paper is both exploratory and explanatory

extended attempt to describe the notion of Familipreneurship.

Thus, this paper intends to fill the existing gap in entrepreneurship literature and serves its

purpose by affirming the economic value of relationship, which is our largest social capital and

usually ignored in business perspective. Familipreneurship refers to the entrepreneurial spirit

running through the family as a whole and not just confined to a single individual. This paper

showed family ties are the crucial factor in family enterprise, and it is an attempt to outline the

special characteristics of Familipreneurship and suggest some recommendation for promoting

Familipreneurship and institutionalization of Familipreneurship Education.

Conclusion:

The purpose of this paper is to create intellectual debate affirming the existence of Indigenous

knowledge and skills of the families that has been largely ignored in our social system as well as

in existing entrepreneurship literature. Nicholson, Woods, and Henare (2012) examined the

family business concept in Aotearoa New Zealand and agreed that relationship has its economic

value. The promotion of Familipreneurship will create a natural environment of transferring

inherited knowledge, skill and important lesson and experience across the generations. This

courageous collective effort will enable them to be blended together to reach their goals.

Promoting The family behind the family enterprise significantly influences the behavior of the

family enterprise and family entrepreneurs. Family as a group is more capable of creating new

and develop existing family enterprise including other forms of enterprises. Study on

Familipreneurship will enrich our knowledge through discovering unknown dimensionality of

family ventures and open a new perspective on a comprehensive approach to entrepreneurship.

Familipreneurship will substantially contribute to materialize the UN declaration of integrating

families with post15 development agendas.

==========References:

Aldrich, H.E. and J.E. Cliff (2003), ‘The pervasive effects of family on entrepreneurship: toward a family embeddedness perspective’, Journal of Business Venturing, 18(5), 573–96.Charmaz, K. (2006) Constructing Grounded Theory, Sage Publications: London.Chrisman, James J., Jess H. Chua and Lloyd Steier. 2005b. "Sources and consequences of distinctivefamiliness: an introduction." Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 29(3):237-247.Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building Theories from Case Study Research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532- 550.Gartner, W.B. & Birley, S. (2002). Introduction to the special issue of qualitative methods in entrepreneurship research. Journal of Business Venturing, 17(5), 387-395.Giudice, Peruta, and Carayannis (2011), Knowledge and the Family Business: The Governance and Management of Family Firms in the New Knowledge Economy (Innovation, Technology, and Knowledge Management), Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg LondonHabbershon, Timothy G. and Mary L Williams. 1999. "A resource-based framework for assessing thestrategic advantages of family firms." Family Business Review 12(1):1-25.Heck et al. (2006), “The family’s dynamic role within family business entrepreneurship” in Work” Handbook of Research on Family Business” Ed. Poutziouris, X. Smyrnios, and B. Klein, Cheltenham and Massachusetts, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited and Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.Moores, Ken and Justin Craig. 2005. "Balanced scorecards to drive the strategic planning of familyfirms." Family Business Review 18 (2):105–122.Morck, Randall and Bernard Yeung. 2004. "Family control and the rent-seeking society."Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 28(4):391-409.Nordqvist, Mattias. 2005a. "Familiness in Top Management Teams: Commentary on Ensley andPearson's 'An Exploratory Comparison of the Behavioral Dynamics of Top Management Teams inFamily and Non-family New Ventures: Cohesion, Conflict, Potency, and Consensus'."

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 29(3):285-291.Nicholson, A. Woods, C. and Henare, M.(2012,June). Umanga Whanaungatanga: Family Business. Paper presented at the 57th Annual ICSB World Conference, New ZealandPearson, Allison W., Jon C. Carr and John C. Shaw. 2008. "Toward a Theory of Familiness: A SocialCapital Perspective." Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice 32(6):949-969.Pratt, M. G., K. W. Rockmann, et al. (2006). "Constructing Professional Identity: The Role of Work and Identity Learning Cycles in the Customization of Identity Among Medical Residents." Academy of Management Journal 49(2): 235-262.Rahman, S. M. (2011, June). Enterprising through Promoting Familipreneurship for Sustainable Poverty Reduction, Employment Generation and Economic Growth. Paper presented at the 56th Annual ICSB World Conference, Stockholm, Sweden.Rogoff, E.G. and Heck, R.K.Z. (2003), ‘Evolving research in entrepreneurship and family business: recognizing family as the oxygen that feeds the fire of entrepreneurship’, Journal of Business Venturing, 18(5), 559–66.Stafford, K., K.A. Duncan, S.M. Danes and M. Winter (1999), ‘A research model of sustainable family businesses’, Family Business Review, 12(3), 197–208.Stanley (2010), "Emotions and Family Business Creation: An Extension and Implications",Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 34(6), 1085–1092Van Maanen, J., S. Rensen, J. B., & Mitchell, T. R. (2007). Introduction to Special Topic Forum: The Interplay between Theory and Method. Academy of Management Review, 32(4),1145-1154.