Strategic regeneration of the family business: the case of multigenerational businesses.

Summary The purpose of this thesis is to understand how and by what mechanisms multi-generational family businesses regenerate. Research on family firms, and more generally on entrepreneurship, responds to debates that have emerged in recent years. The theoretical anchoring comes from the interweaving of two rarely associated theoretical bodies of knowledge, family business and strategic regeneration. The work has focused specifically on the multi-generational family firm for what it offers as a potential study of the family dimension and the importance of the generational aspect in strategic behavior. As a result, some key concepts of strategic regeneration have emerged leading to the sustainability of the family business. Using a historical and narrative approach, we analyzed the strategic regeneration processes in four century-old family businesses. The results obtained allowed us to understand the role of the family in the strategic regeneration process and to propose an integrative model of strategic regeneration in the family business.