۱- Introduction

۲- Human resource management in the family firm

۳- The imprinting process in brief

۴- Genesis: negative imprinting from the parent-child relationship

۵- Metamorphosis: imprinting, learning and culture in the family firm

۶- Manifestations: the dark side’s effect on family firms

۷- Reimprinting: breaking bad habits in the family and firm

۸- Discussion

References

Abstract

Organizational learning can be a key shared value that perpetuates the family’s and the family firm’s culture across generations. Imprinting theory helps to explain the impact that lessons learned and transmitted can have on the development of human resources in the family firm. However, the results of imprinting may not necessarily be positive, particularly when imprinting manifests itself in negative processes and expectations. Whereas imprinting and organizational learning are often associated with a “positive halo effect,” they have the potential to result in negative behaviors and deleterious firm-level outcomes. Employing imprinting theory as a framework, we highlight the potential dark side of imprinting within the family firm context and how it can damage human resource efforts and threaten company performance and firm survival. Finally, we suggest how bad habits may be broken and replaced with more effective routines so as to ensure the family firm’s continuity and success.

Introduction

Imprinting – the perspective that what happened to people and organizations during past crucial events holds a large sway on how they behave in the present and the future – is an important mechanism to explain how individuals and firms gather resources and pursue opportunities that help the organization survive, perform and grow (Marquis & Tilcsik, 2013; Simsek, Fox, & Heavey, 2015). Research that takes an imprinting perspective has generally focused on potentially positive outcomes such as entrepreneurial legacy and innovation in family firms (Jaskiewicz, Combs, & Rau, 2015; Kammerlander, Dessi, Bird, Flori, & Murru, 2015), entrepreneurial network partnerships (Milanov & Shepherd, 2013), venture capital investment in new industries (Dimov, de Holan, & Milanov, 2012), sustaining of multi-family-owned businesses over several generations (Pieper, Smith, Kudlats, & Astrachan, 2015), human resource values in early-growth stage firms (Leung, Foo, & Chaturvedi, 2013), human resource management changes and practices (e.g., Kim, Bae, & Yu, 2013; Kim & Gao, 2010), and organizational learning’s role in the survival of new firms (Dencker, Gruber, & Shah, 2009). As research interest grows regarding imprinting and its impact on entrepreneurship, family firms and human resource management, there has not been as great an emphasis on how the imprinting process might be associated with negative consequences for the organization and its members (for a limited discussion of negative effects of imprinting see Boeker, 1989; Braun & Sharma, 2007; Leung et al., 2013). This is especially true when organizational learning and imprinting are considered in the context of the family firm; most of the relevant literature focuses on how learning aids development and functioning of the family firm, in areas such as stewardship (Le Breton-Miller & Miller, 2015) and continuity (Konopaski, Jack, & Hamilton, 2015; Pieper et al., 2015), particularly how the imprint that occurs among members of the founding family affects how family members subsequently learn and engage in behavior they believe will help their personal success in the family firm. The purpose of this paper is to address a missing element of imprinting theory and research by examining what may be considered by some to be “appropriate” behavior in the context of family relationships and how this behavior relates to the imprinting of bad habits that are difficult to break and that carry with them the possibility of dysfunctional human resource consequences and the ultimate destruction of the firm.