Representations of family businesses in Russian popular culture.

• Author: Keplinger, Ksenia

1. INTRODUCTION

   Being a significant source of growth, prosperity and welfare, family businesses are of prime importance for the economies of countries all over the world. It is widely acknowledged that family firms differ from non-family businesses in many aspects, such as financing, organizational and governance structure, survivability and human resources (Chrisman et al., 2006; Colli, 2003). The specific characteristics such as a long-term orientation, risk aversion, sustainability and fair working conditions are consistently referred to family firms. The majority of perceptions and associations with family firms is formed by the family business scholars, members and other experts and illustrates therefore an "insider-perspective" (Krappe et al., 2011). Despite the increased scholarly attention to theoretical and empirical research in family businesses in the last years, the relevance of external images of family firms has been neglected by research.

   Understanding the ways in which the wider population perceives family businesses helps to better appreciate the roles of family firms in a broader social context. Maintaining public perceptions is significant not only for preserving respectability and attracting the best talents, but also for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage and ensuring the survival of family businesses (Carnegie and Napier, 2010). One of the ways to study the external images of family firms from the perspective of the broad public is to examine their portrayals in popular culture. Fiction and movies can be described as "the canon of the modern age, the set of cultural references with which everyone in society is familiar" (Zakaria, 2003). Fiction can be used as an enriching field for management research (Phillips, 1995) because it presents a common image of an occupation at a certain time in a certain place and at the same time influences actual practices and career choices of people (Czarniawska and Rhodes, 2006). Film, as one of the most massive and influential artifacts of modern popular culture, has also the power to depict and then change the public attitudes to a particular profession and its role in society (Lee, 2001). Serving both as a mirror of widely held public beliefs and as a lens for shaping social perceptions (Dyer, 1993), representations in fiction and movies have an essential influence on any social group.

   In this paper we analyze the public perceptions of family businesses throughout history in the cultural context of Russia, using fiction and movies as a field material. Both studying the image of a profession in popular culture and choosing a cultural perspective are the well-known methods of management research. However, the external images of family businesses in general and those of Russian family firms in particular have been scarcely explored by scholars. Considering the role of family firms in modern society and the rapidly growing body of literature and empirical studies, the implementation of this research approach seems to be appropriate also for the field of family business. This paper is the first step to close the existing research gap in order to provide a better understanding of family business images in Russia and reveal misconceptions about family firms promoted to the audience through the mass media. Besides, we explore how the political, economic and social changes in Russia influenced the public perceptions towards family businesses over the years. Finally, we seek to explain the reasons why the negative portrayals of family firms in Russian popular culture are the rule rather than the exception and present possible solutions of this problem.

   There are two main reasons for choosing Russian family businesses as objects for the present study. The first reason is the current low level of knowledge about the development of family firms in Russia. A significant amount of empirical studies about family businesses in various nations has emerged in the last twenty years (Astrachan, 1993; Floren, 1998; Klein, 2000; Andersson et al., 2002; Welsh and Raven, 2006; Bewayo, 2009). The first discussion about the re-emergence of family firms in the former communistic countries has already been started in the late 1990s in Family Business Review (Poutziouris et al. 1997; Pistrui et al., 1997; Donckels and Lambrecht, 1999) and is still topic of current research (Dyer and Mortensen, 2005; Barkhatova, 2008; Kowalewski et al., 2010). However, family firms in Russia remain little studied, thus this topic needs to be brought to the research agenda. The second reason for selecting Russian family businesses is their remarkable historical development. On the one hand, modern family firms in Russia lack tradition and experience because establishing a business was forbidden during the Soviet era. On the other hand, there are a lot of examples of Russian families (e.g. Demidovy, Yeliseevy), who carried on successful businesses for many generations before the October Revolution 1917 and whose names are still well-known all over the country. This contrast asks for evaluation of how the political, economic and social changes have influenced the representations of family businesses in popular culture and consequently the public perceptions of family firms over the years.

   The reminder of the paper is structured as follows. The second part starts with an overview of previous studies devoted to the image of family firms in popular culture in different countries, followed by the description of the theoretical framework applied. Next, we provide short information about the development of Russian family firms in practice. After that, the data collection, analysis and methodology used are explained. The paper concludes with the presentation and discussion of the results of the qualitative study as well as some recommendations and ideas for future research.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

   This study contributes to a body of empirical research that investigates how representations in popular culture shape and change the public perceptions of different professions such as lawyers (Asimow, 2001; Greenfield, 2001; Hilyerd 2009), doctors (Spears, 1955; Dans, 1998), librarians (Walker and Lawson, 1993), journalists (Brennen, 2004; Ehrlich, 2006), PR professionals (Miller, 1999; Lee, 2001; Ames, 2010), social workers (Hiersteiner, 1998; Henderson and Franklin, 2007), salespeople (Hartman, 2006) and accountants (Beard, 1994; Smith and Briggs, 1999; Ewing et al., 2001; Hoffjan, 2003; Dimnik and Felton, 2006; Felton et al., 2008).

   The main part of previous research was dedicated to the images of (family) businesses in the English-speaking countries, primarily in the US. For instance, Ribstein (2009) analyzes portrayals of businesses in more than 100 Hollywood movies and reports that "the family firm is the epitome of a worker-friendly company". Family business is expected to provide the same continuity between the individual and the community as the family itself. As an example serves the movie "Sometimes a Great Notion" (1971) where a family business comes into conflict with the community because of the attitudes of the founders. Family business as a long-term player that cares about employees is depicted in "Other People's Money" (1991). A family-owned wire and cable manufacturer is targeted to be taken over by the financial raider Garfield, who is shown as an inhuman capitalist warring only about the profits and shareholders' interests and ignoring the employees' needs. On the contrary, the patrician manager of the family business Jorgenson always chooses a long-term oriented and "moral" perspective, refusing to reincorporate the company to Delaware, pay greenmail or borrow money (Ribstein, 2009).

   Examining American fiction of the first half of the 20th century, Halsey (1959) points out that family business members are often portrayed as people who care for their customers by building personal relationships (e.g. "Dangerous Business" by E...