Leadership Styles, Strategic Behavior, and Strategic Choices in Family Firms: A Systematic Literature Network Analysis

Abstract

Family firms are distinctive organisational forms in which ownership, governance, leadership, and strategic decision-making are closely intertwined. Although prior research has examined leadership, succession, governance, and strategy in family firms, the literature remains fragmented regarding how leadership styles are associated with both strategic behaviour and strategic choices. This study addresses this gap by conducting a Systematic Literature Network Analysis of 59 studies on leadership and strategy in family firms. Combining systematic review procedures with bibliographic network analysis, this paper maps the intellectual and thematic structure of the field and synthesises the evidence around five research questions. The findings show that the literature is theoretically rich but not yet fully consolidated, with socioemotional wealth, upper echelon theory, agency theory, stewardship theory, and the resource-based view serving as dominant lenses. Leadership appears to be connected with strategy mainly through affective, political, and cognitive mechanisms, while the procedural core of strategic decision-making, including participation, dissent, consensus formation, and formal planning, remains underdeveloped. This review also shows that leadership is more frequently studied in relation to identity-relevant strategies, such as sustainability, innovation, succession, digital transformation, and professionalisation, while scale-and-scope strategies remain less examined. This study contributes by proposing an integrative framework of five leadership-to-outcome pathways and by outlining a future research agenda for leadership, entrepreneurship, and strategic renewal in family firms.