Socioemotional wealth: A systematic literature review from a family business perspective

Hernández-Perlines, Felipe; Araya-Castillo, Luis; Millán-Toledo, Cristian; Ibarra Cisneros, Manuel Alejandro Article Socioemotional wealth: A systematic literature review from a family business perspective European Research on Management and Business Economics (ERMBE) Provided in Cooperation with: European Academy of Management and Business Economics (AEDEM), Vigo (Pontevedra) Suggested Citation: Hernández-Perlines, Felipe; Araya-Castillo, Luis; Millán-Toledo, Cristian; Ibarra Cisneros, Manuel Alejandro (2023) : Socioemotional wealth: A systematic literature review from a family business perspective, European Research on Management and Business Economics (ERMBE), ISSN 2444-8834, Elsevier, Amsterdam, Vol. 29, Iss. 2, pp. 1-14, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iedeen.2023.100218 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/294118 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Socioemotional wealth: A systematic literature review from a family business perspective Felipe Hern andez-Perlines a, *, Luis Araya-Castillo b , Cristian Mill an-Toledo c , Manuel Alejandro Ibarra Cisneros d a Full Professor Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, University of Castilla-La Mancha, C/ San Pedro M artir s/n., Toledo 45071, Spain b Professor Faculty of Engineering and Business, Universidad Cat olica Silva Henríquez (UCSH), Santiago de Chile, Chile c Facultad de Administraci on y Negocios, Universidad Aut onoma de Chile, Ricardo Morales 3369, Comuna San Miguel, Santiago de Chile, Chile d Faculty of Administrative Sciences, Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexicali, Baja California, M exico ARTICLE INFO Article History: Received 13 July 2022 Revised 24 May 2023 Accepted 25 May 2023 Available online 2 June 2023 ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of socioemotional wealth research from the perspective of the family business. This analysis describes the current research trends and shows the future lines of research to guide future research in this field. A detailed and systematic analysis of the scientificproductionof 1026 articles on socioemotional wealth published in the Web of Science (WoS) between 1975 to May 2021. This work shows the consolidation of socioemotional wealth as an area of research in family business, whose development has occurred since 2007. On the other hand, the most important articles, authors, countries and institutions in research on socioemotional wealth are pointed out. Finally, this paper concludes that the theoretical foundation of socioemotional wealth as an area of research is due to its connection with Family Business Theory. © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. on behalf of AEDEM. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Keywords: Socioemotional wealth Family firm Bibliometric analysis VOSviewer JEL Codes: C88 D21 M21 1. Introduction Family firms pursue a combination of both business and family goals (Mahto et al., 2010), which usually overlap (Klein et al., 2005; G omez-Mejía et al., 2011). Among these non-economic objectives is the preservation of socioemotional wealth (Berrone et al., 2010; Glover & Reay, 2015), which represents the non-economic rewards that owners of family firms obtain from their businesses (G omezMejía et al., 2007). This is an essential factor for the strategic decisions of family businesses and is a characteristic that distinguishes them from other types of organizations (G omez-Mejía et al., 2011). On this line, we agree with Brigham and Payne (2019) and Swab et al. (2020) in that the rise and consolidation of the research on family firms are, to some extent, due to the emergence of the concept of socioemotional wealth, especially considering the definition given by G omez-Mejía et al. (2007) and their measurement based on the model proposed by Berrone et al. (2012). Therefore, socioemotional wealth is a rather interesting phenomenon that is found exclusively in family businesses and which guides their strategic behaviors (Chang & Mubarik, 2021), as this entails the creation of a non-financial utility that benefits the family in terms of their investment decisions (Souder et al., 2017;Hern andez-Perlines et al., 2019). According to Di eguez-Soto et al. (2021) socioemotional wealth is seen as the most important differentiator of the family firm as a unique entity, and it can help to understand why family firms are not a homogeneous group with identical characteristics, behavior, and interests (Berrone et al., 2012). For this reason, socioemotional wealth is one of the distinctive elements of family businesses (Holt et al., 2018;Hern andez-Perlines et al., 2020;Andreu et al., 2020,2021). This has been so important that has led some authors to state that socioemotional wealth is the key factor in the heterogeneity of family businesses and therefore a distinguishing element of this type of firm (Odom et al., 2019;Fang et al., 2019;Swab et al., 2020) and also to assert that the development of research on family businesses is due to the introduction of socioemotional wealth (Brigham & Payne, 2019;Swab et al., 2020). Moreover, socioemotional wealth provides a conceptual framework that adequately explains the differences between family and * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (F. Hern andez-Perlines). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iedeen.2023.100218 2444-8834/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. on behalf of AEDEM. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) European research on management and business economics 29 (2023) 100218 www.elsevier.es/ermbe non-family businesses, as well as the differences between family businesses themselves (Salvato & Aldrich 2012). The reason for this is that socioemotional wealth allows the incorporation of relations between firm and family, considered as the main distinctive characteristic of these businesses, which explains their priorities in strategic decision-making (Habbershon et al., 2003;Zahra & Sharma, 2004; Araya-Castillo et al., 2021b). In this paper a systematic review of the literature was conducted on socioemotional wealth from the family business approach. The use of this approach is justified because, following Cano-Rubio et al. (2017), socioemotional wealth allows us to analyze how the firm behaves differently (G omez-Mejía et al., 2007) using specific resources and capabilities (Basco, 2013). Moreover, if we look at the dimensions considered to measure socioemotional wealth, all of them have a direct relationship with aspects specific to the family business (Berrone et al., 2012). A further reason that justifies the use of this approach is that it is a rapidly growing area of research focused on family business (Araya-Castillo et al., 2021b). With this purpose in mind, this paper makes use of the bibliometric analysis, as it presents unique opportunities to contribute to theory and practice (Mukherjee et al., 2022). Bibliometric analysis has gained immense popularity in business research in recent years (Donthu et al., 2020,2021;Khan et al., 2021). However, the popularity of this technique in business research is not a fad but rather a reflection of its utility for handling large volumes of scientific data, and producing high research impact (Donthu et al., 2021). Bibliometric studies tend to be more objective and extensive in scope than other types of reviews (Donthu et al., 2021;Fan et al., 2022), because bibliometric analysis is useful for deciphering and mapping the cumulative scientific knowledge and evolutionary nuances of well-established fields by making sense of large volumes of unstructured data in rigorous ways (Donthu et al., 2021). This paper aims to answer the following research questions: 1. What is the publication trend for socioemotional wealth research? 2. Which are the most relevant studies on socioemotional wealth? 3. In which countries and institutions do the leading researchers in the field of socioemotional wealth work? 4. In which research networks do the main authors on socioemotional wealth participate? 5. Which scientific journals generate more knowledge on socioemotional wealth? 6. What relevant research topics stand out in the field of socioemotional wealth? 7. What are the future research directions for socioemotional wealth research? The relevance of this work is that it not only describes the scientific production in the socioemotional wealth research field, but it also aims to be a source of reference for academics in identifying future lines of research in the socioemotional wealth area. 2. Theoretical framework The number of studies that examine the role of emotions in business performance is growing (Rizvi & Oney, 2018). Family businesses seek other non-economic objectives that are critical to their management (Tagiuri & Davis, 1992;Zellweger et al., 2013). Non-financial goals include socioemotional wealth, which, as a distinctive feature of family businesses (G omez-Mejía et al., 2011), has become one of the main points of reference for the management of such firms (Berrone et al., 2010;Glover & Reay, 2015). Consequently, a new research stream has emerged that focuses on family firms’emotional endowment, represented by socioemotional wealth (Hern andez-Perlines et al., 2021). This theoretical alternative is based on the model of behavioral agency (Chrisman & Patel, 2012) and is suited to the study of family firms as it integrates family, personal, and organizational goals (Llanos-Contreras & Alonso-Dos-Santos, 2018), which occasionally clash with one another (Franco & Prata, 2019). This explains why emotions are a distinctive attribute of family firms (Astrachan & Jaskiewicz, 2008;Zellweger & Astrachan, 2008; Berrone et al., 2012) and could play an important role in company behavior (Goss, 2005) due to their impact on decision making (Astrachan & Jaskiewicz, 2008). In family firms, the members of the family feel emotional attachment to other family members, strongly identifying with the family firm, which is often seen as an extension of the family (Kallmuenzer et al., 2018). The affect (feelings and emotions) could increase creativity and opportunity recognition in risky environments (Baron, 2008), and the succession in family firms is determined by the degree of involvement of descendants and the way they perceive the rewards obtained by their predecessors (Wang et al., 2018). Hence, socioemotional wealth entails a new research perspective referring to non-economic aspects of family businesses (G omezMejía et al., 2011), as this perspective offers a comprehensive theoretical framework that enables the analysis of different aspects of the family firm (Kabbach de Castro et al., 2016). In recent years, socioemotional wealth has become a relevant factor in explaining the behavior of family firms (G omez-Mejía et al., 2007;Berrone et al., 2012;Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2014;Chua et al., 2015;MartínezRomero & Rojo-Ramírez, 2016;Hern andez-Perlines et al., 2021), as it is considered a key factor for preservation in family firms (Araya-Castillo et al., 2021b;Hern andez-Perlines et al., 2021). In this context, socioemotional wealth was defined by G omezMejía et al. (2007, p. 106) as the “non-financial aspects of the firm that meet the family’s affective needs, such as identity, the ability to exercise family influence and the perpetuation of the family dynasty”. The concept of socioemotional wealth has been extensively analyzed in studies on family businesses (e.g., G omez-Mejía et al., 2010;Cruz et al., 2012;Goel et al., 2013;Naldi et al. 2013;Schepers et al., 2014; Sciascia et al., 2014;Vandemaele & Vancauteren 2015;Hern andezPerlines et al., 2019,2020;Araya-Castillo et al., 2021b;Hern andezPerlines et al., 2021). This perspective suggests that family businesses make decisions to protect their socioemotional wealth, even if these decisions entail financial losses (G omez-Mejía et al., 2007;Berrone et al., 2012;Naldi et al., 2013). However, family firms pursue nonfinancial goals which uniquely reflect the interests, vision, and attitude of the controlling family (Chrisman et al., 2012) which struggles to generate and preserve its socioemotional wealth (Domenichelli & Bettin, 2021). Along these lines, Miller and Le Breton-Miller (2005) proposed four dimensions of socioemotional wealth: continuity, control, community, and connections. Meanwhile, Berrone et al. (2012) identified five dimensions of socioemotional wealth: family control and influence, identification of family members with the firm, binding social ties, emotional attachment of family members, and renewal of family bonds to the firm through dynastic succession. These authors argued that socioemotional wealth is the single most important feature of a family firm’s essence that separates it from other organizational forms (Hern andez-Perlines et al., 2021). However, Kellermanns et al. (2012) expanded the concept of socioemotional wealth, considering two perspectives that are essential when socioemotional wealth is analyzed in family businesses: one favorable and the other unfavorable (Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2014). Within the first perspective, Cennamo et al. (2012) maintained that socioemotional wealth allows family businesses to adopt a proactive policy of participation of the interested parties. Within the second, Schepers et al. (2014) analyzed the moderating effect of socioemotional wealth in the entrepreneurial orientation performance relationship in family businesses, concluding that socioemotional wealth limits that relationship. F. Hern andez-Perlines, L. Araya-Castillo, C. Mill an-Toledo et al. European research on management and business economics 29 (2023) 100218 2 This explains why, a review of the literature disclosed a large amount of research analyzing the role of socioemotional wealth as a factor explaining the behavior of family businesses (Hern andez-Perlines et al., 2019). Studies on the impact of socioemotional wealth on family business decision making have focused, inter alia, on acquisition strategies (Pazzaglia et al., 2013;G omez-Mejía et al., 2018), in internationalization processes (Kraus et al., 2016;Hern andez-Perlines et al., 2020), exit strategies (DeTienne & Chirico, 2013), risk taking (G omez-Mejía et al., 2007,2019), innovation (Li & Daspit, 2016; Kosmidou & Ahuja, 2019), entrepreneurial orientation (G omez-Mejía et al., 2011;Alonso-Dos Santos & Llanos-Contreras, 2019;Hern andez-Perlines et al., 2019;Llanos-Contreras & Jabri, 2019,2021), and corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches (Berrone et al., 2010;Cruz et al., 2014;Di eguez-Soto et al., 2021). This paper is a bibliometric analysis of the research on socioemotional wealth of articles published in journals indexed in WoS between 1975 and May 2021. There are also other studies that review the literature on socioemotional wealth. Among them, Jiang et al. (2018) performed a systematic review of 421 papers published during the first decade of socioemotional wealth research in 25 peerreviewed journals that had published at least five articles that cited the seminal study on SEW model developed by G omez-Mejía et al. (2007), and studied how and why social psychological research can contribute to avoid reification in socioemotional wealth. Chang and Mubarik (2021) reviewed 188 papers published between 2007 and 2020 in six academic databases (Elsevier, Emerald, Sage, Springer, Taylor Francis, Wiley, Others). The findings revealed research gaps that could be explored by future researchers. According to the authors, socioemotional wealth as a construct is still relatively growing, hence it appears as a paradoxical construct with several contradictions and gaps. Migliori and Za (2021) analyzed 294 publications focusing on socioemotional wealth published up to May 2020 in any sources of the Scopus database. Using a bibliometric analysis, the authors classified the scientific community debating socioemotional wealth in terms of publication activity by author, journal, and country, and the publication’s impact measured in terms of citation by author and per year; they also developed a co-word analysis on the most used keywords by author using social network analysis tools. Araya-Castillo et al. (2021b) conducted a scientometric study of socioemotional wealth in which they analyzed 501 papers published in the WoS Science Citation Index between 1975 and 2019, concluding that this is a rapidly growing area of research focused on the family business, its performance and ownership. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature as it is based on the WoS Core Collection, which was used to identify 1026 scientific papers on the subject, with a total of 23,227 citations. For this reason, this research includes a greater number of papers in the review, and it is also more up to date (as of May 2021). 3. Methodology This research reviewed the different studies found in the literature on socioemotional wealth and shows research trends in the main lines of action. With this in mind, bibliometric techniques were used (Toro-Jaramillo, 2017), i.e., mathematical and statistical methods were applied to books and other written media (Pritchard, 1969), and generally used to summarize, classify, and provide representative results of a set of bibliographic documents (Rovelli et al., 2021). This methodology is an emerging and cutting-edge field of research in library and information science, which has developed extensively in recent decades (Astr€ om, 2007;Miguel & Dimitri, 2013; Araya-Castillo et al., 2022). This is relevant because, although bibliometrics is criticized for its inaccuracies and quantitative measurement limitations, it is very useful for a systematic literature review and the development of the state of the art (Toro-Jaramillo, 2017). This is because bibliometric resources allow the evaluation and analysis of academic production in different areas of science and knowledge (Martínez et al., 2015;Montero-Díaz et al., 2018). Bibliometric methods for understanding the dynamics related to document production and impact by journals, authors, institutions and countries (Cort es-S anchez, 2020). Therefore, the growth of scientific production in recent decades and its indexing in automated bibliographic databases have boosted the use of bibliometrics and the generation of indicators used to measure the results of scientific and technological activities (Sanz-Valero & Wanden-Bergh, 2017). Bibliometric analyzes provide a detailed and systematised source of information on scientific production in a specific discipline (Merig o et al., 2015). This can be used as reference by researchers (Morales et al., 2017), and makes it possible to assess scientific activity, the impact of publications, and the available sources to guide new research (Moreno & Rosselli, 2012). This study uses bibliometric analysis as a methodology for analysing the literature on socioemotional wealth. This type of analysis applies mathematical and statistical techniques to study the patterns of publications and the use of different documents (Diodato & Gellaty, 2013). This bibliometric analysis has been systematized in such a way as to follow the phases proposed by Velt et al. (2020). The research process is divided into six steps: formulation, identification, selection, confirmation, analysis, and synthesis (see Table 1). The first phase, called formulation, describes the objectives of the study and poses the research questions that this study seeks to answer. This study analyzes the literature specializing in socioemotional wealth, and is a conclusive descriptive study (Malhotra, 2004). The second stage, called identification, establishes search patterns (Wang & Chugh, 2014) based on the identification keywords and the time span of the search. Conducting bibliometric studies to classify the research on a topic requires a careful selection of database records (Hasper-Tabares et al., 2017). Following Vega-Mu~ noz et al. (2020),‘Socioemotional Wealth’was established in the Web of Science (WoS) as the keyword for the search vector. This database was chosen as it is one of the most influential sources for searching scientific information, it has high search accessibility, and it provides knowledge about authors, articles, and journals dealing with the development of this subject matter (Granda-Orive et al., 2013). In addition, the WoS includes different indexes such as the Social Science Citation Index (SCI-E), the Social Science (SCI-E), Social Science Citation Index, and Emerging Sources Citation Index (Vega-Mu~ noz et al., 2020). When using the WoS-indexed research, the focus was on the most important research, and only peer-reviewed papers were considered (Keupp et al., 2012;Dada, 2018;Kauppi et al., 2018; Velt et al., 2020). The keyword ‘socioemotional wealth’was used as it is widespread in the literature. The time span of the WoS analysis was from 1975 to May 2021. The WoS database incorporates papers from the year 1975 onwards. So, to cover the entire timeline available in WoS, the search encompasses information from the start year of this database, thus covering the entire universe available. Using the last five years of publications in literature reviews is intended to provide updated literature values (Bores-García et al., 2021;Zurita et al., 2016). The third stage dealt with the selection. Sound bibliometric analysis requires a careful selection of records from a given database (Hasper-Tabares et al., 2017). In this case, the information available in the WoS was considered due to its relevance (Granda-Orive et al., 2013). The search was carried out in the WoS Core Collection using the term ‘socioemotional wealth’. With this criterion, 1026 scientific papers on the subject were identified, with a total of 23,227 citations. Neither books nor proceedings were taken into consideration. The fourth step verified the dataset. This process was carried out by authors dealing with a specific line of research in socioemotional wealth and the ones known for publishing in high impact journals in the JCR. F. Hern andez-Perlines, L. Araya-Castillo, C. Mill an-Toledo et al. European research on management and business economics 29 (2023) 100218 3 The fifth stage focused on the analysis of the data using the appropriate tools according to the proposed objectives and research questions. The bibliometric indicators used for the analysis were: articles, citations, journals, institutions, authors, and countries. An analysis of the bibliometric map in socioemotional wealth was also carried out. It was therefore possible to draw a detailed map of key concepts based on frequency data and their respective clusters (Araya-Castillo et al., 2022). A map of collaboration between authors was also included, as this helped identify the main actors in a scientific collaboration network and to see how the different actors are grouped in different areas within a network (Araya-Castillo et al., 2022). The Impact Factors 2019 of each scientific journal was also analyzed according to the JCR, as it is one of the most widely used indicators in the field of bibliometrics (Bosch et al., 2001), and the H-index for measuring the professional quality of publications in terms of the citations received by scientific papers (G alvez Toro et al., 2006). Finally, the sixth phase included the identification of clusters to determine the interrelation of scientific production (van Eck & Waltman, 2017). Compared with other types, direct citations (also known as cross-citations) yield more accurate information (Klavans & Boyack, 2017;Waltman & van Eck, 2012). The bibliometric analysis conducted in this study was performed with the VOSviewer software, version 1.6.15 (Van Eck & Waltman, 2010) and Excel tools (Araya-Castillo et al., 2022). With these tools, the bibliometric analysis summarizes the bibliometric and intellectual structure of a field by analyzing the social and structural relationships between different research constituents (e.g., authors, countries, institutions, topics). According to Donthu et al. (2021), the techniques for bibliometric analysis fall into two categories, which are: (1) performance analysis; and (2) science mapping. In a nutshell, performance analysis accounts for the contributions of research elements, whereas science mapping focuses on the relationships between research constituents. On the one hand, performance analysis examines the contributions of research constituents to a given field (Ramos-Rodríguez & Ruíz-Navarro, 2004;Cobo et al., 2011), which is descriptive in nature (Araya-Castillo et al., 2022), it is the hallmark of bibliometric studies (Donthu et al., 2021); and a standard practice in reviews that present the performance of different research constituents (e.g., authors, institutions, countries, and journals) in the field, which is similar to the profile of participants that is typically presented in empirical research albeit more analytical (Araya-Castillo et al., 2022;RiveraArroyo et al., 2021). On the other hand, science mapping examines the relationships between research constituents (Baker et al., 2021;Cobo et al., 2011; Ramos-Rodríguez & Ruíz-Navarro, 2004). The analysis deals with intellectual interactions and structural connections among research contituents (Donthu et al., 2020). Therefore, the techniques for science mapping include citation analysis, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, co-word analysis, and co-authorship analysis (Araya-Castillo et al., 2022), as they aimed to visualize bibliometric networks (Rivera-Arroyo et al., 2021). This is so because, when combined with network analysis, these techniques are instrumental in presenting the bibliometric structure and the intellectual structure of the research field (Baker et al., 2018). 4. Analysis of the results This section describes the studies that have been performed in the field of socioemotional wealth and the lines of research that remain to be developed or have less scientific production. This is relevant because scientific production cannot advance if it relies on old material, as current production is the basis for future research and Table 1 The research process. Phase Description Application Phase 1: Formulation This phase consists of creating a comprehensive representation of socioemotional wealth research by identifying, classifying, visualizing and synthesising existing scholarly publications in the subject area. We formulate and address the following research questions: 1. What is the publication trend for socioemotional wealth research? 2. Which are the most relevant studies on socioemotional wealth? 3. In which countries and institutions do the leading researchers in the field of socioemotional wealth work? 4. In which research networks do the main authors on socioemotional wealth participate? 5. Which scientific journals generate more knowledge on socioemotional wealth? 6. What relevant research topics stand out in the field of socioemotional wealth? 7. What are the future research directions for socioemotional wealth research? Phase 2: Identification This phase consists of identify the most relevant publications for the bibliometric study. ‘Socioemotional Wealth’was established in the Web of Science (WoS) as the keyword for the search vector. When using the WoS-indexed research, the focus was on the most important research, and only peer-reviewed papers were considered. Therefore, books, book chapters, abstracts, conferences, etc. were excluded. The keyword ‘socioemotional wealth’was used as it is widespread in the literature. Phase 3: Selection This phase consists of reviewing the titles of the papers that matched our keyword searches. Where necessary, we examined the abstracts and the introduction sections to narrow down the list of sources. The relevant articles thus identified were added to the WoS marked list. Following the aforementioned criteria, as a result 1026 scientific papers on the subject were identified, with a total of 23,227 citations. Phase 4: Confirmation This phase consists of downloading the text corpus as a plain text format appropriate for bibliometric investigation. This process was carried out by two of the authors, as they have papers on family business and socioemotional wealth published in high-impact journals indexed in the Journal Citation Reports JCR and WoS. Some of them are: Hern andez-Perlines et al. (2021,2020,2019). Phase 5: Analysis This phase consists of analyzing the bibliometric data through analysis tools that would best fit our study’s aims and provide clear answers to our research questions. The bibliometric indicators used for the analysis were: articles, citations, journals, institutions, authors and countries. A bibliometric mapping analysis and a map of collaboration between authors were also included. Phase 6: Synthesis This phase consists of determining the interrelatedness of the research output and identify distinctive clusters in the research domain. We included the identification of clusters to determine the interrelation of scientific production. To do this, we used direct citations or cross-citations obtained through the VOSviewer program. Source: Own elaboration based on Velt et al. (2020). F. Hern andez-Perlines, L. Araya-Castillo, C. Mill an-Toledo et al. European research on management and business economics 29 (2023) 100218 4 publications (Jim enez-Bucarey et al., 2020;Vicencio-Ríos et al., 2020; Araya-Castillo et al., 2021b). 4.1. Papers and citations Ever since the publication of the paper by G omez-Mejía et al. (2007), which was pioneer in the literature on socioemotional wealth, scientific production has been increasing. The development of the research line on socioemotional wealth is recent, but over the years it has reached a higher level of interest. 2021 shows a decrease in the number of publications, but this is due to the fact that the search was carried out in May (see Fig. 1). Therefore, considering the historical evolution in the number of publications, scientific production in socioemotional wealth in 2021 is expected to exceed 2020 figures. Related to the above, the number of citations reported in the literature is also increasing. In fact, the first reported citation dates back to 2008, one year after the first publication on this subject. Since then, citations in the field of socioemotional wealth have increased significantly, which explains the decrease in 2021 which is due to the fact that the database was compiled in May (see Fig. 2). Based on this, and as is the case with the number of publications, if the historical evolution of the number of citations is considered, the numbers for 2021 should exceed the figures reached in 2020. A total of 23,227 citations have been made on this subject. Table 2 shows that there is a low concentration of papers with a high number Fig. 1. Number of papers published by year. Source: Compiled by the author. Fig. 2. Number of citations per year. Source: Compiled by the author. 5 F. Hern andez-Perlines, L. Araya-Castillo, C. Mill an-Toledo et al. European research on management and business economics 29 (2023) 100218 of citations, since only 5 papers (0.49% of the studies conducted) out of a total of 1026 have more than 500 citations. As for the rest, 2 papers have more than 250 and fewer than 500 citations (0.19% of the studies performed), 32 papers have more than 100 and fewer than 250 citations (3.12% of the studies performed), 73 papers have more than 50 and fewer than 100 citations (7.12% of the studies performed), and 914 papers have fewer than 50 citations (89.08% of the studies performed). In Table 3, if considering the number of citations and the average number of citations per year, the most relevant paper in the literature is the one written by G omez-Mejía et al. (2007). This paper was published in Administrative Science Quarterly, and is the only one on the list with over 1000 citations. Since the seminal socioemotional wealth model proposed by G omez-Mejía et al. (2007), this approach has been widely used by family business scholars in order to better investigate how and why family firms follow different logics than non-family businesses when making strategic decisions and choosing their policies (Migliori & Za, 2021). It is therefore clear that the greatest impact of the literature on socioemotional wealth family firms has happened recently, specifically in the last 14 years. 4.2. Authors Table 4 shows the 10 most influential authors ranked according to their contribution to this field. To measure the impact of the publications, the order of the authors was established based on the number of papers and citations in the subject under study. In addition, an analysis was carried out of the number of papers and citations of each author, the H-index, the percentage of papers focusing on the study of socioemotional wealth, and whether the authors’publications are in the top 30. The contribution to the generation of knowledge, in relation to the search vector, is determined by the number of papers published. These are not always the most influential authors, but they are important in terms of their scientific productivity. Hence, to identify the authors who are most productive in terms of socioemotional wealth research, the following is indicated: the number of papers on the subject, the total number of citations, the average number of citations of the published papers, the percentage on the total number of papers published on the subject, the author’s h-index, the total number of publications by the author in the WoS platform, and the total number of citations of the author calculated on his or her publications in the WoS platform. De Massis is the author with the largest number of published papers on socioemotional wealth, and 4 of his papers are among the 30 most influential in the literature. Kellermanns is in second place with the highest H-index and number of papers (overall). However, G omez-Mejía is the author with the highest number of citations in the literature on socioemotional wealth, with 6 papers among the 30 most influential, and with the highest number of citations (overall). Chrisman also stands out with 6 papers among the 30 most influential, and Kammerlander with the highest percentage of his papers (52%) devoted to socioemotional wealth. In addition, the map of author collaboration in Fig. 3 shows 10 scientific collaboration networks. When drawing the map, one of the criteria was the presence of at least 5 authorships. Of these networks, 8 include the 10 most prolific authors in socioemotional wealth research. Only the brown and purple networks do not include the most relevant authors in this field of literature. Moreover, G omezMejía is included in two collaborative networks (yellow and light blue networks); in one of them (yellow network) he appears as lead author. 4.3. Journals A selection was made of the 20 most influential journals in the socioemotional wealth literature (ranked according to the total number of papers published on the subject). As shown in Table 5, the 5 most influential journals are the following: (1) Journal of Family Business Strategy; (2) Family Business Review; (3) Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice; (4) Journal of Family Business Management; and (5) Journal of Business Ethics. For the 20 journals under study, the average H-index value is 75.11, while for the 5 most influential journals this value rises to 79. Also, the 20 journals show average values for the number of papers and citations in socioemotional wealth of 28.3 and 690.4, respectively; for the 5 most influential journals these values rise to 66 and 1786.6. In addition, the 5 most influential journals differ from the 20 journals under study in the breadth and depth of their publications. In the set of 20 journals, the average value of published papers is 2787.2, while the average number of citations amounts to 37,690.53; for the 5 most relevant journals the average values of published papers and citations amount to 1444 and 47,544.8, respectively. In order to gage the quality of the journals, their impact factor was considered. This information was extracted from the WoS platform in the Journal Citation Report (JCR). In 2019, the average impact factor of the 20 journals was 4.08. However, the 5 journals with the highest relevance in the literature had an impact factor of 4.91. Finally, if the H-index is calculated considering only socioemotional wealth, differences could also be observed between the 20 most influential journals and the sample of the 5 best ranked. Thus, the average H-index value for the 20 journals is 11.2, while for the top 5 it rises to 21. 4.4. Institutions Merriam-Webster (2008) pointed out that higher education institutions provide facilities for teaching and research activities (O’Brien et al., 2011) where the nature of academic research is understood as knowledge creation (Adams et al., 2008). In light of this, Table 6 provides a list of the 10 most influential institutions in socioemotional wealth research. Mississippi State University and Lancaster University are the most influential institutions in the socioemotional wealth literature and have the same H-index values (26) and total number of papers (52). The WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management & Euromasters also stands out because of a higher percentage (11.8%) of publications in socioemotional wealth in the past 5 years, and the University of Alberta because it has the highest number of citations (3611) in this field. As for the University of North Carolina, it has the highest number of publications (48,318) in the past 5 years. 4.5. Countries Creating knowledge as a central element to improve the quality of life and progress (Sebasti an, 2007) is essential to achieve development as a country as, in the field of scientific dissemination and communication, the goal is to contribute to the construction of a map of Table 2 General structure of quotations on socioemotional wealth in WoS. Number of citations Number of papers % of papers ≥500 citations 5 0.49% ≥250 citations 2 0.19% ≥100 citations 32 3.12% ≥50 citations 73 7.12% <50 citations 914 89.08% Total 1026 100% Source: Compiled by the author. 6 F. Hern andez-Perlines, L. Araya-Castillo, C. Mill an-Toledo et al. European research on management and business economics 29 (2023) 100218 Tabla 3 30 most influential papers on socioemotional wealth. R Title TC C/A Author/s Journal Year 1 Socioemotional Wealth and Business Risks in Family-Controlled Firms: Evidence from Spanish Olive Oil Mills 1457 97.13 G omez-Mejía, Luis R.; Haynes, Katalin Takacs; Nunez-Nickel, Manuel; Jacobson, Kathyrn J. L.; Moyano-Fuentes, Jose Administrative Science Quarterly 2007 2 Socioemotional Wealth in Family Firms: Theoretical Dimensions, Assessment Approaches, and Agenda for Future Research 797 79.7 Berrone, Pascual; Cruz, Cristina; G omezMejía, Luis R. Family Business Review 2012 3 The Bind that Ties: Socioemotional Wealth Preservation in Family Firms 743 67.55 G omez-Mejía, Luis R.; Cruz, Cristina; Berrone, Pascual; De Castro, Julio Academy of Management Annals 2011 4 Socioemotional Wealth and Corporate Responses to Institutional Pressures: Do Family-Controlled Firms Pollute Less? 671 55.92 Berrone, Pascual; Cruz, Cristina; G omezMejía, Luis R.; Larraza-Kintana, Martin Administrative Science Quarterly 2010 5 Variations in R&D Investments of Family and Nonfamily Firms: Behavioral Agency and Myopic Loss Aversion Perspectives 533 53.3 Chrisman, James J.; Patel, Pankaj C. Academy of Management Journal 2012 6 Family Control and Family Firm Valuation by Family CEOs: The Importance of Intentions for Transgenerational Control 299 29.9 Zellweger, Thomas M.; Kellermanns, Franz W.; Chrisman, James J.; Chua, Jess H. Organization Science 2012 7 Do Family Firms Have Better Reputations Than Non-Family Firms? An Integration of Socioemotional Wealth and Social Identity Theories 273 30.33 Deephouse, David L.; Jaskiewicz, Peter Journal of Management Studies 2013 8 Doing More with Less: Innovation Input and Output in Family Firms 239 39.83 Duran, Patricio; Kammerlander, Nadine; van Essen, Marc; Zellweger, Thomas Academy of Management Journal 2016 9 Socioemotional Wealth and Proactive Stakeholder Engagement: Why Family-Controlled Firms Care More about their Stakeholders 238 23.8 Cennamo, Carmelo; Berrone, Pascual; Cruz, Cristina; G omez-Mejía, Luis R. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 2012 10 Research on Technological Innovation in Family Firms: Present Debates and Future Directions 225 25 De Massis, Alfredo; Frattini, Federico; Lichtenthaler, Ulrich Family Business Review 2013 11 The Adolescence of Family Firm Research: Taking Stock and Planning for the Future 218 21.8 Gedajlovic, Eric; Carney, Michael; Chrisman, James J.; Kellermanns, Franz W. Journal of Management 2012 12 Entrepreneurial Legacy: Toward a Theory of How Some Family Firms Nurture Transgenerational Entrepreneurship 212 30.29 Jaskiewicz, Peter; Combs, James G.; Rau, Sabine B. Journal of Business Venturing 2015 13 Why Do Family Firms Strive for Nonfinancial Goals? An Organizational Identity Perspective 205 22.78 Zellweger, Thomas M.; Nason, Robert S.; Nordqvist, Mattias; Brush, Candida G. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 2013 14 Multinationals and Corporate Social Responsibility in Host Countries: Does Distance Matter? 205 20.5 Campbell, Joanna Tochman; Eden, Lorraine; Miller, Stewart R. Journal of International Business Studies 2012 15 The Ability and Willingness Paradox in Family Firm Innovation 171 24.43 Chrisman, James J.; Chua, Jess H.; De Massis, Alfredo; Frattini, Federico; Wright, Mike Journal of Product Innovation Management 2015 16 The Internationalization of Family Firms: A Critical Review and Integrative Model 163 20.38 Pukall, Thilo J.; Calabro, Andrea Family Business Review 2014 17 Risk Abatement as a Strategy for R&D Investments in Family Firms 163 20.38 Patel, Pankaj C.; Chrisman, James J. Strategic Management Journal 2014 18 Is Family Leadership Always Beneficial? 163 18.11 Miller, Danny; Minichilli, Alessandro; Corbetta, Guido Strategic Management Journal 2013 19 Extending the Socioemotional Wealth Perspective: A Look at the Dark Side 162 16.2 Kellermanns, Franz W.; Eddleston, Kimberly A.; Zellweger, Thomas M. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 2012 20 Socioemotional Wealth as a Mixed Gamble: Revisiting Family Firm R&D Investments with the Behavioral Agency Model 158 19.75 G omez-Mejía, Luis R.; Campbell, Joanna Tochman; Martin, Geoffrey; Hoskisson, Robert E.; Makri, Marianna; Sirmon, David G. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 2014 21 Are Family Firms Really More Socially Responsible? 153 19.13 Cruz, Cristina; Larraza-Kintana, Martin; Garces-Galdeano, Lucia; Berrone, Pascual Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 2014 22 Ability and Willingness as Sufficiency Conditions for FamilyOriented Particularistic Behavior: Implications for Theory and Empirical Studies 153 19.13 De Massis, Alfredo; Kotlar, Josip; Chua, Jess H.; Chrisman, James J. Journal of Small Business Management 2014 23 Deconstructing Socioemotional Wealth 152 19 Miller, Danny; Le Breton-Miller, Isabelle Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 2014 24 The Family Innovator’s Dilemma: How Family Influence Affects the Adoption of Discontinuous Technologies by Incumbent Firms 150 16.67 Koenig, Andreas; Kammerlander, Nadine; Enders, Albrecht Academy Of Management Review 2013 25 Family Firm Governance, Strategic Conformity, and Performance: Institutional vs. Strategic Perspectives 147 16.33 Miller, Danny; Le Breton-Miller, Isabelle; Lester, Richard H. Organization Science 2013 26 Does Family Employment Enhance MSEs Performance? Integrating Socioemotional Wealth and Family Embeddedness Perspectives 138 13.8 Cruz, Cristina; Justo, Rachida; De Castro, Julio O. Journal of Business Venturing 2012 27 Drivers of Proactive Environmental Strategy in Family Firms 124 11.27 Sharma, Pramodita; Sharma, Sanjay Business Ethics Quarterly 2011 28 Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting: A Content Analysis in Family and Non-family Firms 122 17.43 Campopiano, Giovanna; De Massis, Alfredo Journal of Business Ethics 2015 29 More than a Metaphor: Assessing the Historical Legacy of Resource Dependence and its Contemporary Promise as a Theory of Environmental Complexity 118 13.11 Wry, Tyler; Cobb, J. Adam; Aldrich, Howard E. Academy of Management Annals 2013 30 Socioemotional Wealth and Earnings Management in Private Family Firms 115 9.58 Stockmans, Annelies; Lybaert, Nadine; Voordeckers, Wim Family Business Review 2010 Abbreviations: R: Ranking; TC: total paper citations; C/A: average paper citations per year. Source: Compiled by the author. 7 F. Hern andez-Perlines, L. Araya-Castillo, C. Mill an-Toledo et al. European research on management and business economics 29 (2023) 100218 accessible knowledge through citation indicators (Fern andez & Martín, 2018). This is why the research on socioemotional wealth is analyzed according to its geographic distribution, and the results of the analysis by country are shown in Table 7 and Fig. 4. There are however some anomalies, such as the fact that the papers are written by researchers who are affiliated with institutions in different countries, which overestimates the number of publications. The Web of Science platform counts the number of publications so that early access papers that have been peer-reviewed, are cited and published. For the purposes of this research, this means that the absolute value of the number of papers published is not 1026, and that the relative frequencies do not add up to 100%. With 31% of the scientific production, the United States is the leading country in terms of literature on socioemotional wealth, followed by Spain, Italy, Germany, Canada, and United Kingdom, with over 10% of publications. The contribution of the rest of the countries is less than 10% of the total scientific production. Publication in socioemotional wealth is therefore concentrated in a few countries, divided into two regions: a) North America (United States, Canada); and b) Europe (Spain, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom). Table 4 The most influential and productive authors on socioemotional wealth. R Author’s Name TP-SW TC-SW %TP-SW / TP H TP TC T10 1 De Massis A. 40 1725 44% 34 91 3662 4 2 Kellermanns Fw. 29 1614 31% 41 95 6067 3 3 Chrisman JJ. 26 2333 37% 39 70 5547 6 4 Miller D. 21 980 25% 32 84 5113 3 5 Calabro A. 20 562 42% 17 48 1320 1 6G  omez-Mejía Lr. 19 4491 40% 26 47 6993 6 7 Kammerlander N. 17 698 52% 14 33 950 2 8 Chirico F. 16 491 21% 23 77 1912 0 9 Kotlar J. 16 589 48% 21 33 1606 1 10 Memili E. 16 301 41% 15 39 718 0 Abbreviations: R: author’s ranking; TP-SW: author’s total papers on socioemotional wealth; TC-SW: total citations of the author in papers on socioemotional wealth;%TP-SW/TP: percentage of author’s total papers on socioemotional wealth only; H: author’s H-index; TP: author’s total number of papers; TC: total number of citations per author; T30: author’s total number of papers that are among the 30 most influential papers published at all times. Fig. 3. Author collaboration map of the research on socioemotional wealth. 8 F. Hern andez-Perlines, L. Araya-Castillo, C. Mill an-Toledo et al. European research on management and business economics 29 (2023) 100218