Familial Socio‐Political Influences on New Venture Creation in Family Business

New venture (NV) creation has been extensively studied in Entrepreneurship literature (Perrow, 2002). However, recent discussion on NV has moved to ecosystems such as family businesses (Sharma et al., 2014). As a business family grows, creating new business ventures becomes crucial for family business sustainability (Zahra, Hayton & Salvato, 2004). Family plays an important role in NV creation (Rodriguez et al., 2009). Though it is critical for family business sustainability, researchers have regularly emphasized that our understanding of the actual venture creation process in family business requires further exploration (Steier, 2009). particularly, the role played by the socio-political forces within the family in NV creation process is an area that is not understood well. This paper is an attempt to address this crucial gap in literature. The key questions we researched are: (i) Besides commercial viability, what other considerations influence NV creation in family businesses? (ii) Why some economically viable NV proposals receive family’s support, while others do not?, and (iii) What influence do family members have on resource allocation to NVs? We report answers to them based on empirical research done on Indian family businesses.