Practicing resilience in family firms: An investigation through phenomenography

Abstract

Despite the growing interest in resilience in family business, the current literature overlooks the contribution of owners/managers in practicing resilience. We focus on the experiences and practices of owners/managers of family businesses, and apply phenomenography, an interpretive methodology, to capture variations in how owners/managers understand and practice resilience in longstanding Australian and Italian family wineries. The findings show that owners/managers’ resilience practices are determined by four qualitatively different understandings of resilience. Our understanding-based theory provides a novel interpretation of resilience in the family business field, challenging the rationalistic approach by demonstrating that resilience is not universal but multifarious, such that the owners/managers’ understanding of resilience determines how resilience is practiced.