Process of legitimization of a family business in the service of a radical innovation.

Summary The objective of this research is to understand the mechanisms that led to the legitimization of a family business in an innovative market, that of electric mobility. First, in the literature review, we highlighted the link between family business / innovation / legitimacy, the question of the legitimization of the family business in an innovative sector being little addressed in the literature. We then turned to the method of grounded theory integrated with critical realism. The analysis of the Lorbeer firm allowed us to study in depth the effects of social capital and familiarity in an innovative sector. Through the emergence of a "grounded theory", we have uncovered a process of legitimization through the accumulation of resources, structured around the development of family social capital and in line with the model of profit-sharing developed by Akrich, Callon and Latour (1988).