Paradigms and Theory Building in the Domain of Business Families

This article argues the bona fides of the study of family business as a standalone discipline. Using a widely accepted evolutionary process for the development of scientific disciplines and an established theory-building methodology, the author introduces a theoretically robust explanation of the domain of business families. Established theories widely acknowledged as having relevance to business families are meshed with the universally accepted three-circle Venn diagram-based paradigm to illustrate both the stage of the discipline in theory building terms and an evolutionary path to further develop a theory of the business family domain.