Welcome Kupangwa, Shelley M. Farrington, Elmarie Venter
Abstract
Transgenerational value transmission (TVT) is a crucial ingredient for enhancing transgenerational entrepreneurship among business-owning families. Despite its importance, studies on values in family businesses reveal a limited understanding of how the next generation (NextGen) learn values from the senior generation family members. Our study aims to increase this understanding in the context of indigenous African business-owning families. More specifically, our objective is to explore the socialisation mechanisms used in transmitting values from one generation to the next in these families. Using 17 participants from seven cases, the results indicate that parents and extended senior family members are socialisation agents, and both parental and family practices are used as socialisation mechanisms to facilitate TVT in indigenous Black South African business-owning families. This study contributes to the family business literature concerning socialisation and TVT, and by doing so, we advance the scholarly understanding of socialisation theory in an indigenous African context. Indigenous African business-owning families could use the findings from our study to enhance the growth and survival of their businesses, as well as their entrepreneurial legacies.