Institutionalizing the family business: The role of professional associations in fostering a change of values

The authors examine the role played by a voluntary professional association as a carrier of mimetic and normative institutional pressures in the institutionalization of new governance practices among family businesses. They observe how a change in guiding values within family businesses is led by an institutional champion actively involved in the professional association. This institutional champion bridges the gap between micro-level change at the firm level and the professional association’s macro-level discourse. This study makes several contributions to both family business research and institutional theory. Keywords values, family business, institutional theory, professional associations, institutional champion There seems to be growing awareness and agreement that family firms constitute a unique form of business organization (Zahra & Sharma, 2004). Recent argu-ments suggest an increasing institutionalization of the family business. Mimetic, coercive, and normative forces (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Scott, 2001) are pressuring family businesses to become similar to one another, for instance, through the adoption of spe-cific governance structures, processes, and policies (Melin & Nordqvist, 2007). It follows that the family business can be considered a special form of business organization subject to similar forces, constituting an “organizational field, ” that is, a recognized area of insti-tutional life (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Recent literature on institutional theory emphasizes a dynamic view of institutions, giving special importance to studying how institutions and, therefore, institutional-ized practices, norms, and values change over tim