Title: Pull of opportunity and push of necessity on family and non-family businesses: embedded in society in Egypt, Madagascar, Morocco and Turkey

Authors: Shayegheh Ashourizadeh; Elham Kalhor; Hasna Skalli; Xiaoting Hu

Addresses: School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing, China ' Department of Marketing and Management, International Business and Entrepreneurship Research Group, University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen, Odense, Denmark ' Laboratory of Research in Entrepreneurship and Management of Organisations, Hassan II University Casablanca, Casablanca, Morocco ' School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing, China

Abstract: The upstart of a business may be motivated by a pull of an opportunity in the market or by a push of necessity to make a living. The business may be governed by family or by a non-family group. The question is whether motive and governance are coupled. Drawing on the resource-based view, we hypothesise that families especially often are motivated by opportunity. Representative samples of family and non-family businesses in Egypt, Madagascar, Morocco and Turkey reported on motives for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey. Motive and governance are found to be coupled, in that family businesses, more than non-family businesses, tend to be motivated by opportunity. Moreover, this coupling is found in all four societies, and to be of similar strength in all four, suggesting that the coupling may be globally universal for similar contexts. Finding this coupling contributes to the theory of family business and practice for policymakers.

Keywords: opportunity motive; necessity motive; wealth creation opportunity; independence opportunity; family business; context.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2021.117117

European Journal of International Management, 2021 Vol.16 No.2, pp.222 - 238

Received: 30 Jun 2019
Accepted: 22 Mar 2020
Published online: 18 Aug 2021 *

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