International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 20, S63–S82 (2018) DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12167 Family Firm Goals and their Effects on Strategy, Family and Organization Behavior: A Review and Research Agenda Ralph I. Williams Jr, Torsten M. Pieper, 1 Franz W. Kellermanns 2,3 and Joseph H. Astrachan 1 Jennings A. Jones College of Business, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN 37132, USA, 1 Coles College of Business, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA 30144, USA, 2 University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA, and 3 WHU (Otto Beisheim School of Management), Burgpl. 2, 56179 Vallendar, Germany Corresponding author email: ralph.williams@mtsu.edu Goals are a key differentiator between family businesses and non-family businesses. To improve understanding of this topic, the authors take stock of what they know about goals in family business. They synthesize prior research findings and classify the research into five categories: family business goal antecedents; goal characteristics; goal-related outcomes; moderators of goal outcomes; and feedback loop. The paper concludes by highlighting future research to advance both family business goal and general management research. Introduction Family business research has grown exponentially (e.g. Debicki et al. 2009; Stewart and Miner 2011; Xi et al. 2015) and researchers’ interest in family business goals has flourished (G´ omez-Mejia et al. 2007; Zellweger et al. 2013). Research on family business goals is vitally important as goals deter- mine the family firm’s willingness to act. As such, goals are often cited as a building block of family business definitions (Chua et al. 1999; De Massis et al. 2014). Furthermore, goals are seen to have a significant effect on strategic decisions and behav- ior in family businesses (Chrisman et al. 2015; Kot- lar et al. 2017; Mazzelli et al. 2017; Sciascia et al. 2015), and family business goals are often driven by family-centric and often non-financial motivations (Basu 2004; Gagn´ e et al. 2014; Lee and Rogoff 1996). Family business goals are a source of family business heterogeneity, differentiating individual family firms from other family firms (Chrisman et al. 2012; Chua et al. 2012; Garc´ ıa- ´ Alvarez and L´ opez-Sintas 2001; Sirmon and Hitt 2003) as family business goals are often a reflection of the desires or intentions of the firm’s most salient stakeholder group, the family (Mitchell et al. 2011). Lastly, the literature on goals in family business focuses on a plethora of intersecting topics, such as socio-emotional wealth (SEW) (e.g. G´ omez-Mejia et al. 2007; Zellweger et al. 2012), ref- erence points (e.g. Cennamo et al. 2012; Kotlar et al. 2014a), and intra-family succession (De Massis et al. 2008; Sharma et al. 1997), among many others. Given the growth in family business research, the importance of exploring family business goals and the diversity of topics related to family business goals, we appear to be at a critical juncture where an assess- ment of the current state of the literature is called for (Vazquez and Rocha 2016). The present study aims to address this need by providing a holistic look at the body of family business goal research, classifying this research into antecedents, characteristics, related outcomes, moderators and feedback loops, and pro- viding guidance for the development of this important area of research. The literature review employed the systematic literature review approach (Tranfield et al. 2003), resulting in 347 articles in total that touched on C  2018 British Academy of Management and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA