Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Family Business Strategy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jfbs Relational processes in family entrepreneurial culture and resilience across generations Sheila K. Hanson a, ⁎ ,HeatherM.Hessel b ,SharonM.Danes b a School of Entrepreneurship, College of Business and Public Administration, University of North Dakota, 293 Centennial Drive, Stop 8363, Grand Forks, 58202-8363, ND, USA b Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota, 290 McNeal Hall, 1985 Buford Avenue, St. Paul, MN, 55108, USA ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Entrepreneurialculture Family entrepreneurship Family ledger Relational ethics Resilience Family processes ABSTRACT Thestudypurposeistoempiricallydemonstrateatheoreticallygroundedmethodforelucidatingtheunderlying familyrelationalprocessesthatleadtoresiliencythatsustainsanentrepreneurialcultureacrossgenerations.The study is grounded in Sustainable Family Business and Contextual Family Therapy theories. Data were multi- informant(parents,adultchild)andmulti-method(videotapedbusinessdecisionteaminterviewswithverifying individual member interviews) allowing for coding of both verbal content and afect within interactions. Relationalethics,fairness,andjusticeinfamilyrelationshipswereusedtointerpretobservablefamilybehaviors indicativeofunderlyingfamilyresilienceprocesses.Thestateofthefamilyledger,anoverallaccountingofthe balanceofgiveandtakeinfamilyrelationshipsovertime,wasassessedtobetterunderstandfamilyresiliency(a capacity from which to draw to facilitate adaptation to change or adversity) and ultimately transgenerational transferofentrepreneurialculture.Resultsindicatethatentrepreneurialcultureisinfuencedbyrelationalethics andthefamilyledgerandmaybealteredacrossgenerations.Specifcally,amorebalancedledgerrepresentinga higher degree of resiliency (a protective factor) opens the door to access and use of other family capital (f- nancial, human, other social capital) that feeds and sustains an entrepreneurial culture across generations. 1. Introduction An entrepreneurial culture consists of a system of shared values, beliefs, norms, rules and opinions held collectively within a business (Fletcher, Melin, & Gimeno, 2012; Zahra, Hayton, & Salvato, 2004). That culture infuences a frm’s disposition to support and sustain en- trepreneurship in the short term and over time across generations (Habbershon, Nordquist & Zellweger, 2010). However, family frms may become less entrepreneurial across generations (Jaskiewicz, Combs, & Rau, 2015). Thus, better understanding of how en- trepreneurship is fostered in family frms is vital, yet research on me- chanismstonurtureentrepreneurshipissparseintheliterature.Inthis study, we investigate family relational processes that contribute to a richerunderstandingofhowowningfamiliesnurtureentrepreneurship across generations, known as transgenerational entrepreneurship (Habbershon, Nordqvist, & Zellweger, 2010; Jaskiewicz et al., 2015). Sustaining entrepreneurship is achieved through individual and collective relational processes of family members (Bettinelli & Randerson,2016; Danes,2016; Fletcher,2010; Kirkwood,2007; Rogof & Heck, 2003; Yang & Danes, 2015). Sustainable Family Business Theory (SFBT; Danes&Brewton,2012), the present study’s grounding theory, illuminates family capital stocks (human, fnancial, and social) asresiliencecapitalthatexistsinfamilyand frm systems. Sustainable Family Business Theory further emphasizes resource and interpersonal family processes that utilize that capital at the intersection of family andbusinesssystemstosecureshort-termachievementsandlong-term sustainability,bothofwhichareessentialforpursuingentrepreneurial endeavors. However, capturing phenomena such as temporally evolving and unseen family processes is illusive and difcult (Dyer & Dyer, 2009; Langley & Abdallah, 2011). To do so, we utilize concepts from Con- textual Family Therapy Theory (CFTT). Boszormenyi-Nagy and Spark (1973) proposed the concepts of relational ethics, fairness, and justice infamilyrelationships,andafamilyledger,ametaphortodescribethe overall accounting of family relationships and the exchanges between individual family members over time. Therefore, this study integrates CFTTconcepts(Boszormenyi-NagyandSpark,1973)ofrelationalethics and the family ledger with tenets of SFBT to secure observable family behaviorsindicativeofunderlyingfamilyprocesses.Thestudypurpose is to demonstrate empirically a theoretically grounded method for https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfbs.2018.11.001 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: sheila.hanson@und.edu (S.K. Hanson), hhessel@umn.edu (H.M. Hessel), smdanes@umn.edu (S.M. Danes). Journal of Family Business Strategy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx 1877-8585/ © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Please cite this article as: Sheila K. Hanson, Heather M. Hessel and Sharon M. Danes, Journal of Family Business Strategy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfbs.2018.11.001