Habitual entrepreneurship in the family business

Over the last few decades the interest of scholars in habitual entre- preneurship has grown progressively; in-depth studies of the phenom- enon have brought to light the widespread presence of entrepreneurs who, though working in different industries, develop and manage more than one business, either simultaneously or in succession, during their working lifetime. Within the context of multi-firm ownership, it is not unusual to find that the creation of a subsequent or parallel business involves subjects belonging to the same family. An investigation carried out in the field of multiple entrepreneurship, by means of interviews targeted on en- trepreneurs who owned, or had owned, at least two firms, yielded im- portant results regarding the widespread nature of the phenomenon and one specific characteristic: subsequent business initiatives often originate and develop with the involvement of family members, giving rise to examples of multi-business realities controlled by a single family. The aim of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of how the family business structure develops within a multi-firm reality. For this reason, following the data analysis, some possible configura- tions are presented of the two phenomena and the different ways in 111 112 De Joannon A. – Garraffo F. which they may overlap with time; the family business may easily ex- tend into the realm of habitual entrepreneurship, according to the atti- tude and behaviour of the entrepreneur and the opportunities he meets with. On the other hand, also the opposite may occur, that is that a single entrepreneur, on deciding to increase his portfolio of firms, may involve members of his own family hitherto not present in the busi- ness, thereby giving birth to a group of firms with family and non- family features.