Dr Jane Glover, Research Fellow in Birmingham Business School, has won the 2015 Family Business Review Best Article Award for her paper on how family farms operate under constrained financial circumstances.
Entitled, 'Sustaining the Family Business With Minimal Financial Rewards: How Do Family Farms Continue?', the paper was published in 2015 and co-authored by Professor Trish Reay from the University of Alberta, Canada. Focusing on UK dairy farms, the paper noted four distinct behaviours to preserve the business. Chosen by the Editor of Family Business Review, the award highlights eight articles - including Dr Glover's - from the field that are of high quality.
In the article's feedback, reviewers said, "The paper addresses an obvious but unaddressed question: how can family farms persist in the face of weak economic returns and, more broadly, what determines how poor performing family firms survive? This paper goes further than previous research in highlighting the extent firms must sometimes go to – namely, sacrifice and compromise – to achieve non-economic goals. In doing so, it highlights the importance of legacy and a long-term perspective in a way that prior research has not. The paper makes an important theoretical contribution; indeed, the topic of persistence in times of weak performance is an important one beyond the field of family business. It also has really interesting implications for practice in terms of helping family firms understand trade-offs. Moreover, the paper is of high quality in terms of the application of qualitative methods."
To read the paper for yourself, please visit the Family Business Review.