Family business resilience under the COVID-19: A comparative study in the furniture industry in the United States of America and Colombia

Abstract

COVID-19 has impacted the world and has forced organizations to adapt to the “new normal”, and family businesses have not been exempt. In this study, we answer two research questions; how prepared are family businesses to face shocks like the pandemic?and, do contexts matter in that response? Using the Resource-Based View of the firm, in this qualitative exploratory study we analyze the resources and capabilities deployed by two business families owning three family businesses in the office furniture industry in the countries of Colombia and the USA. Our findings indicate that indeed family businesses are resilient, but the resources and capabilities deployed and their uses are different according to the context, suggesting a contingent familiness during a crisis.

Keywords

• family business
• resilience
• resource-based view
• covid-19