A Betrayal in the Family: An Inhibitor or Stimulus for Business Model Innovation?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Academic Summary Business‐focused betrayals perpetrated by family members in managerial and decision‐making positions can devastate family businesses, questioning their assumptions about trust and how they conduct the business. Such betrayals ignite tensions between family and business logics, potentially causing paralysis and protection of the status quo or compelling innovation of its strategies and operations—its business model. We draw on two contrasting perspectives to examine this tension: the threat rigidity thesis suggests that betrayal inhibits business model innovation by inducing fear of failure (an emotional familial response); organizational learning theory suggests that betrayal stimulates business model innovation by prompting knowledge development (an impassive business response). Relying on a sample of family businesses from India (n = 221) and Bangladesh (n = 289), our results support the latter perspective. Our study provides a theoretical foundation for the relationship between business‐focused betrayal and business model innovation, revealing new mediating mechanisms and new insights into when and why the coupling of family and business logic prompts or impedes change. Managerial Summary Betrayal within family businesses resulting from the actions of family members in leadership or decision‐making positions can strike at the heart of trust and stability. Such moments often provoke powerful emotional reactions that lead to defensiveness, strained relationships, and resistance to change. Yet our findings reveal a more complex reality: betrayal can become a powerful catalyst for business model innovation. Rather than inherently damaging the family business, betrayal can disrupt entrenched routines, compel family business leaders to reassess priorities, and push family firms to explore new strategies, new practices, and innovative business models. The key to this innovation lies in reframing betrayal not as a threat, but as an opening for organizational learning, innovation, and growth. By acknowledging this dual nature, family firms can transform betrayal‐induced adversity into momentum. Doing so enables them to navigate emotional familial responses with impassive business responses that drive innovation to restore the strength, resilience, and competitiveness of the family business in time.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.028 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.011 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".