Our purpose in this editorial is to draw attention to the powerful but undertheorized role played by traditions in family businesses. Our core argument is that traditions are the foundational element of successful family businesses. As we elaborate here, we believe that family business success and longevity are directly correlated with the capacity to successfully manage the creation, maintenance, and intergenerational transmission of traditions. Because of their unique nature, family business tensions are often intergenerational in character and, thus, rest on the family business’s capacity to integrate past, present, and future. We examine two key family business tensions in this editorial. The first is the tension between the need to maintain the business or innovate. De Massis et al. (2016) refer to this tension as the “innovation paradox,” but for reasons that will become obvious later, we refer to it as the Theseus paradox, a classic thought experiment from ancient Greek philosophy premised on the mythological hero best known for killing the Minotaur. The second is the tension between the need to honor the founder’s vision of the firm or adapt to the vision of the children. While this tension is commonly labelled as an issue of succession, we view the tension as broader and deeper than mere succession and term this tension the Oedipus paradox, a reference to another character of Greek myth who, in his efforts to save his city, unwittingly kills his father. While the two paradoxes derive from broader tensions of continuity versus change, they differ in that the first is premised on theories of path dependence and the second is premised on theories of imprinting. Traditions are the primary mechanism by which these tensions are navigated in family businesses. While research has acknowledged traditions as a distinguishing characteristic of family businesses (Lumpkin et al., 2008), the construct of traditions is only weakly theorized. In the absence of a strong theoretical frame, however, the empirical evidence of the role played by traditions in navigating these essential tensions of the family business remains unclear. We initiate the process of theorizing traditions in this editorial. We begin by describing how the hybrid structure of traditions as both structure (what gets transmitted across generations) and agency (the process of transmission) creates the opportunity to view traditions both as essentialist constructs that endure through time and as subjective constructs that are constantly being reinterpreted in an ever moving present. We then introduce the literature on rhetorical history that provides a framework explaining how the process of reinterpreting the past to manage the present actually occurs. Finally, we use this emergent theoretical framework to explain how traditions are used to resolve the Theseus paradox and the Oedipus paradox in family businesses.

中文翻译：

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管理传统：家族企业成功的关键能力

我们在这篇社论中的目的是引起人们对传统在家族企业中所发挥的强大但理论不足的作用的关注。我们的核心论点是，传统是成功家族企业的基本要素。正如我们在此详述的那样，我们相信家族企业的成功和长寿与成功管理传统的创造、维护和代际传承的能力直接相关。由于其独特的性质，家族企业的紧张关系通常是代际的，因此取决于家族企业整合过去、现在和未来的能力。我们在这篇社论中研究了两个关键的家族企业紧张局势。首先是维持业务或创新的需要之间的紧张关系。德马西斯等人。(2016) 将这种紧张关系称为“创新悖论，”但出于稍后将变得显而易见的原因，我们将其称为忒修斯悖论，这是古希腊哲学中的经典思想实验，其前提是以杀死牛头怪而闻名的神话英雄。第二是需要尊重创始人对公司的愿景或适应孩子们的愿景之间的紧张关系。虽然这种紧张关系通常被标记为继承问题，但我们认为这种紧张关系比单纯的继承更广泛、更深刻，并将这种紧张关系称为俄狄浦斯悖论，这是对希腊神话中另一个角色的引用杀了他的父亲。虽然这两个悖论源于更广泛的连续性与变化的紧张关系，但它们的不同之处在于第一个以路径依赖理论为前提，第二个以印记理论为前提。传统是在家族企业中驾驭这些紧张局势的主要机制。虽然研究已经承认传统是家族企业的一个显着特征（Lumpkin 等，2008），但对传统的构建还只是薄弱的理论化。然而，在缺乏强有力的理论框架的情况下，传统在驾驭家族企业的这些基本紧张局势中所起的作用的经验证据仍不清楚。我们在这篇社论中启动了将传统理论化的过程。我们首先描述作为结构（跨代传递的东西）和代理（传递过程）的传统的混合结构如何创造机会将传统视为经久不衰的本质主义结构和不断存在的主观结构。在一个不断移动的礼物中重新诠释。然后，我们介绍有关修辞史的文献，该文献提供了一个框架，解释了重新解释过去以管理现在的过程实际上是如何发生的。最后，我们使用这个新兴的理论框架来解释如何使用传统来解决家族企业中的忒修斯悖论和俄狄浦斯悖论。然后我们介绍有关修辞史的文献，该文献提供了一个框架，解释了重新解释过去以管理现在的过程实际上是如何发生的。最后，我们使用这个新兴的理论框架来解释如何使用传统来解决家族企业中的忒修斯悖论和俄狄浦斯悖论。然后，我们介绍有关修辞史的文献，该文献提供了一个框架，解释了重新解释过去以管理现在的过程实际上是如何发生的。最后，我们使用这个新兴的理论框架来解释如何使用传统来解决家族企业中的忒修斯悖论和俄狄浦斯悖论。