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Entrepreneurship and Family Business Vitality pp 113–132Cite as

Shared Leadership at the Top of Family Firms: How Sibling Teams Engage in Successful Co-leadership

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Abstract

This paper explores shared leadership arrangements at the top of a family firm where leadership is equally shared among a group of family members rather than focused on a designated leader. Pairing different capabilities, characteristics and leadership strategies is viewed as being of benefit in hybrid family firms which face the different sets of logic inherent in maintaining their familiness while also enabling flexibility. We build on the shared leadership approach and recent work on succession and sibling teams to examine the following research question: How do sibling teams succeed in synchronizing their leadership efforts into a successful leadership team? In this research, we draw upon a qualitative, inductive case study to explore two siblings who jointly hold the responsibility at the top of a family firm. Findings indicate that the co-leaders integrate their shared leadership activities into concerted action by considering their reciprocated affirmation, by drawing upon their shared entrepreneurial spirit, and by acknowledging their complementarity. By discovering the integrating mechanisms of shared leadership practices at the top of family firms, we contribute to both the family business literature and research on shared leadership.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

    Jana Bövers & Christina Hoon

Authors
  1. Jana Bövers
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  2. Christina Hoon
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Correspondence to Jana Bövers .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. EGADE Business School-Tecnologico de Monterrey, Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico

    José Manuel Saiz-Álvarez

  2. University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal

    João Leitão

  3. Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico

    Jesús Manuel Palma-Ruiz

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Bövers, J., Hoon, C. (2020). Shared Leadership at the Top of Family Firms: How Sibling Teams Engage in Successful Co-leadership. In: Saiz-Álvarez, J.M., Leitão, J., Palma-Ruiz, J.M. (eds) Entrepreneurship and Family Business Vitality. Studies on Entrepreneurship, Structural Change and Industrial Dynamics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15526-1_7

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