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Building an Outward-Oriented Social Family Legacy: Rhetorical History in Family Business Foundations

  • Luca Manelli
  • , Vittoria Magrelli
  • , Josip Kotlar
  • , Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli
  • , Federico Frattini

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Scholars have recently paid growing attention to the transfer of family legacies across generations, but existing work has been mainly focused on an inward-oriented, intra-family, perspective. In this article, we seek to understand how family firms engage in rhetorical history to transfer their social family legacy to external stakeholders, what we call “outward-oriented social legacy.” By carrying out a 12-months field study in three Italian family business foundations, our findings unveil three distinctive narrative practices—founder foreshadowing, emplacing the legacy within the broader community, and weaving family history with macro—history—that contribute to transferring outward-oriented social legacies.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)143-168
Number of pages26
JournalFamily Business Review
Volume36
Issue number1
Early online date17 Feb 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2023

Keywords

  • family boundary organizations
  • family business foundations
  • family firms
  • rhetorical history
  • social family legacy

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