Familiness and market orientation: a stakeholder approach

Abstract

The basic premise of this article is that the social capital elements of familiness give family firms greater potential for developing a market orientation through three basic elements: the adoption of a stewardship orientation, the development of specific capacities for knowledge management, and the development of a family based brand identity. The literature on market orientation, resource-based view, stakeholder theory and family firms is used to develop a model of market orientation in family firms. The model incorporates the specific features of familiness that influence the cultural and behavioral foundations of market orientation and mediate the relationship between these foundations and the results for the organization.