Identifying the ways of promoting corporate entrepreneurship in Iranian entrepreneurial family firms

Survival and growth of family firms plays a crucial part in economic growth of nations. The respective literature indicates that corporate entrepreneurship is positively effective on the performance of family firms. Still، the development of entrepreneurship in family firms faces a number of opportunities as well as challenges due to their special culture and power structure. Therefore، identifying the ways of promoting corporate entrepreneurship in a family firm can be essential to a large extent. In this paper، five Iranian entrepreneurial family firms have been studied on a case study basis. The results show two levels of activities which enables the firms to promote corporate entrepreneurship: Business related activities and family related activities. At the business level، designing the corporate entrepreneurship strategy and developing entrepreneurial capabilities of the firm are the main activities. At the family level، designing and implementing the ownership and governance system of the family firm، sharing the vision and values of the family، and building up a proper relationship among family members are the principal activities. The current paper describes these activities and explains the way they influence on promoting corporate entrepreneurship in family firms.