Emerald Management Reviews

Design/methodology/approach - Explains that familiness is used to explain relationships within family firms, and to discriminate between family and non-family firms, reviews familiness research and the familiness construct, depicts a resource-based view model of familiness, defines the performance outcomes attributable to familiness, but identifies gaps within the familiness construct pertaining to resources and capabilities, behavioural and social aspects, family histories, and application of other theories/perspectives to the familiness construct. Looks at familiness from the social capital perspective, defines social capital as the sum of resources within, available to, and derived from a network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit, integrates the social capital perspective into the familiness construct, and develops a model of the social capital components of familiness. Incorporates structural, cognitive and relational resources, information access, goals, actions and emotional support in the model, specifies the structural, cognitive and relational dimensions of familiness, and discusses trust, norms, obligations and identification relation-based resources associated with family firms.

Findings - Contends that the three dimensions of social capital lead to superior firm performance, and explores factors/conditions generating social capital, names these as time/stability, closure/boundaries and inter-dependence/interactions, adding these conditions to the model of family firm social capital resources and capabilities to present a social capital model of familiness.

Research limitations/implications - Calls on researchers to continue clarifying and examining the familiness construct.

Originality/value - Extends family-firm and social capital literatures.