From Founder Identity to Family Business Group (FBG) Meta-Identity: Identity Development in the Journey from a Founder’s Firm to an Entrepreneurial Family with a Portfolio of Businesses

Identity is a socially constructed phenomenon that emerges from the contemplation of commonly asked questions of who we are and where we belong that defines behavioral expectations. Identity-individual and collective-is especially important for entrepreneurial families because they identify strongly with their businesses, while their businesses’ strong organizational identity reflects the family’s identity. Yet, as family and business systems’ complexity increase, identities need to evolve. Using theoretical underpinnings of identity, social identity, and organizational identity, we propose a theoretical model of identity development in FBG. It shows the dynamic evolution of the firm founder’s individual owner identity through a family-owners collective identity towards FBG meta-identity that encompasses the legacy business and other assets in the business portfolio. This process, often triggered by external stakeholders’ expectations, includes identity conflicts and identity negotiations. We illustrate the proposed model with a case study of the Pentland Group.