Special Issue – A New Business Model: The Emotional Dimension of Organizations Guest Editor: Rania Labaki Executive Committee Members: Sharon Danes and Anat Rafaeli Juyoung Jang* and Sharon M. Danes Role Interference in Family Businesses Abstract: This study examined the effects of firm and family demands and resilience processes of adjustment strategy patterns and coping capacity on firm owner role interference using the 1997 and 2000 waves of the National Family Business Panel. Sustainable Family Business Theory guided the study and hierarchical multiple regression was performed. Adjustment strategy pat- terns explained the greatest amount of role interference variance. The positive effect of hiring temporary help on role interference was revealed after introdu- cing coping capacity into the regression model. The negative effect of family– business congruity on role interference indicated that family and firm systems function interdependently to overcome disruptions. Keywords: family business, sustainable family business theory, resilience, role interference *Corresponding author: Juyoung Jang, Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota, 290 McNeal Hall 1985 Buford Ave, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA, E-mail: jangx095@umn.edu Sharon M. Danes, Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota, 290 McNeal Hall 1985 Buford Ave, St. Paul, MN, USA, E-mail: sdanes@umn.edu Entrepreneurship theories tend to assume that entrepreneurs solely make entre- preneurial decisions. Making such an assumption, however, discounts the important stakeholder role of family in making entrepreneurial decisions; Dimov (2007) stated that such an approach is a fundamental attribution error. That is particularly true for small firms where family’s influence is more exten- sive than with large firms (Habbershon 2006), where sharing family capital resources between family and firm is more prominent, and where role bound- aries between family and firm are more porous (Danes and Brewton 2012). Settles, Sellers, and Damas (2002) indicated that depending on the firm owner’s perception, the multiple family/firm roles of entrepreneurs are considered sepa- rate and interfering or interdependent and congruent. In taking a first step in doi 10.1515/erj-2012-0020 ERJ 2013; 3(3): 367–390 Brought to you by | Dalhousie University Authenticated Download Date | 5/19/15 6:14 AM