735169

research-article2017
FBRXXX10.1177/0894486517735169Family Business ReviewStrike et al.

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Family Business Review

Unpacking the Black Box of Family

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© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0894486517735169
https://doi.org/10.1177/0894486517735169

Psychology journals.sagepub.com/home/fbr

Vanessa M. Strike1, Alexandra Michel2, and Nadine Kammerlander3

Abstract
Academic research on family business advising is gaining momentum; however, the internal structure and mechanisms
of advice giving and taking remain a black box. We conducted a systematic review that integrates findings from
family business advising with those from psychology. Advising research in psychology has focused on understanding
the subjective constructs and theoretical concepts composing the internal structures of advising. We develop an
input–process–output framework to categorize and integrate both streams of literature on advising, introduce new
concepts and variables from psychology that inform family firm advising, and identify important gaps to delineate
avenues for future family firm research.

Keywords
family firm, advising, decision making, process

Introduction publications, this research stream appears to suffer from

An emerging stream of academic research recognizes
that family firm decision makers do not make decisions
in isolation—they frequently rely on both internal and
external sources of advice (e.g., Reay, Pearson, & Dyer,
2013; Salvato & Corbetta, 2013; Strike, 2012, 2013).
Such advice can be provided by family members, board
members, or external professionals. Recent findings
suggest that these advisors substantially affect family
business outcomes. For instance, advisors are associated
with successful intergenerational transitions (Salvato &
Corbetta, 2013) and adaptive sensemaking (Strike &
Rerup, 2016) at the family level and decreased agency
costs (Michel & Kammerlander, 2015) and increased
performance (Naldi, Chirico, Kellermanns, &
Campopiano, 2015) at the firm level. However, while
advisors and advising have long been a mainstay of fam-
ily business practice, only recently have they begun to
garner scholarly attention.
Since the first systematic literature review on advis-
ing in family firms (Strike, 2012), the number of aca-
demic family firm articles addressing this topic has
indeed multiplied, mirroring the importance of this phe-
nomenon. However, despite the increasing number of
two main shortcomings that prevent a comprehensive
understanding of family firm advising. First, the nascent
scholarly family business research on advising remains
fragmented, with little integration of the findings.
Second, in the first systematic literature review on fam-
ily firm advising, Strike (2012) provides insights in how
the type, characteristics, and competencies of the advi-
sor influence the choice of an advisor and the interven-
tion process in which different advising models might
be used. However, her review further reveals a surpris-
ing lack of academic understanding of the advising pro-
cess itself. Indeed, the processes outlined in her review
focus on advising models that primarily draw
from practitioner streams of literature, which are largely
prescriptive in nature and do not explore the underlying
1
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada
2
University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
3
WHU—Otto Beisheim School of Management, Vallendar, Germany
Corresponding Author:
Alexandra Michel, Department of Business Administration,
University of Bern, Engehaldenstrasse 4, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
Email: alexandra.michel@iop.unibe.ch
2 Family Business Review 00(0)
theoretical how. Why this black box—defined as a “pro-
cess or system whose inputs and outputs (and the rela-
tionships between them) are known but whose internal
structure . . . is not well, or at all, understood”1 (see
Lawrence, 1997, for an overview)—lingers remains a
puzzle. It may well be due to the complexity of develop-
ing and measuring observable variables that are unique
to the advising process. To date, research on family firm
advising processes has not explored the underlying theo-
retical mechanisms of either how advice is provided by
advisors or how family firm decision makers contend
with it. However, understanding the how of advising is
necessary not only to advance our theoretical knowledge
about family firm advising but also to make valid pre-
dictions about the implications of such advising.
To address these shortcomings, we first review the
progress in family firm research since Strike’s (2012)
review and focus solely on academic articles. Second,
we draw on and integrate advising research from the
psychology literature. Advising lies within the roots of
behavioral psychology (Simon, 1947), and it has long
been researched by psychology scholars as part of the
decision making process (see Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006,
for a comprehensive review). While research on family
firm advising remains in its infancy, the psychology dis-
cipline has dedicated much effort to understanding the
actual processes of giving and taking advice and particu-
larly to developing variables that measure the advising
process. Psychology researchers investigate the condi-
tions under which individuals do or do not accept advice,
examine process variables that measure how advice is
utilized (e.g., Yaniv & Milyavsky, 2007), provide theo-
retical frameworks to understand the advising process
(e.g., Sniezek & Buckley, 1995), and explore the roles of
moderating factors (e.g., Tost, Gino, & Larrick, 2012).
To date, psychology scholars have been able to generate
a significant body of research on the antecedents and
processes of advice taking.
Given these potential synergies—and in line with
recent calls to combine and integrate family business
research with other disciplines to substantially advance
the field (James, Jennings, & Breitkreuz, 2012; Reay
et al., 2013)—the aim of this literature review is to bridge
recent literature in both fields and to thereby shed light
on the black box of the advising process. For this pur-
pose, we conduct a systematic literature review in which
we identify and analyze 88 relevant articles from both
streams. Our review reveals that articles in both literature
streams can be structured along an input–process–output
(IPO) framework that is further arranged by levels of
analysis (individual–dyad/group–organization). Input
and output variables are defined as variables that covari-
ate with one another with a change in input (e.g., related
to characteristics of the advisor) resulting in a change in
output (firm or family economic and noneconomic out-
comes). Processes and process variables refer to the
actions or steps (such as advice giving, taking, or seek-
ing) that are taken to achieve a particular output, as well
as the measurements of those actions.
Our framework reveals both similarities and differ-
ences between the two research streams and allows us to
identify important research gaps and to propose promis-
ing avenues for further research. Our contribution is
fourfold. First, we identify a major research gap in fam-
ily business research by showing how the field has
focused on input and output variables, resulting in a
black box regarding the advice giving and taking pro-
cesses in between. Second, we contribute to unpacking
this black box regarding family firm advising by intro-
ducing important constructs from the psychology litera-
ture that enable scholars to better understand, measure,
and quantify the advising process—particularly how the
advice is judged and weighted. Third, we advance the
family business literature by providing a comprehensive
IPO framework that integrates the two disciplines and
that reveals important theories, process variables, and
contextual factors that should be included in future stud-
ies. Fourth, we direct scholarly attention to the need to
conduct more studies focusing on varying levels of anal-
ysis, especially individual-level outcomes. Family firms,
owing to their idiosyncratic decision making, provide a
unique context to scrutinize and potentially extend or
adapt findings from psychology in an interesting and
relevant real-life setting.
Methods
To identify and analyze the extant advising literature, we
systematically reviewed research on family firm advis-
ing and psychology. To capture the literature on family
firm advising, we reviewed academic journals from 2011
to 2017.2 To determine whether an article should be
included, the article had to contain terms that referred to
both family firms and advising.3 We began with the fol-
lowing search engines: EBSCOhost Business Source
Premier, ABI/INFORM, JSTOR, Econlit, and Google
Scholar. To exhaust the relevant literature, we followed
citations trails that led to other contributions and reviewed
Strike et al.
the table of contents of Family Business Review and
Journal of Family Business Strategy. As our final step,
we sent a notice to family business listservs in order to
request unpublished papers and dissertations on family
business advising. These systematic steps enabled us to
extensively cover the recent literature on family firm
advising.
Our initial literature search unearthed 194 family
firm articles on advising. All three authors reviewed
the papers independently to determine their relevance.
We agreed on 84% of the articles and discussed the
remainder until full agreement was reached. To estab-
lish the boundaries of the review, we included only
articles that either provided conceptual advancements
in our understanding of family firm advising or
empirically tested family firm advising hypotheses.
We therefore excluded prescriptive and normative
articles; articles that focus on accounting, auditing,
mentoring, or boards (unless it did so in an advisory
capacity); articles that touch on advising only periph-
erally; and articles that do not concern advising but
that indicate that the findings provide implications for
advisors. All three authors independently reviewed
the articles and then met to discuss the studies; the
final number of relevant scholarly articles on family
firm advising was 52. Although the number of articles
shows researchers’ increasing interest in family firm
advising since the publication of the last review in
2012 (Strike, 2012), the significant number of
excluded articles also suggests that many of the arti-
cles remain prescriptive in nature and do not advance
our conceptual understanding of key constructs or
theories in advising.
To focus on the most relevant and recent articles on
advising from psychology, we used Bonaccio and
Dalal’s (2006) seminal literature review as our starting
point. We then tracked papers that cited this literature
review. Our initial search revealed 315 articles, 220 of
which discussed advice giving and/or advice taking. To
further focus our search, we concentrated our attention
on articles from peer-reviewed journals that had a 5-year
impact factor of 2.2 or higher according to Thomson
Reuters Journal Citation Reports (JCR),4 resulting in 51
articles. This impact factor was based on the journal
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, from Bonaccio and Dalal’s (2006) article. We
followed the same systematic process for reviewing the
articles as above. One article (Strike, 2012) was removed
because it was previously included in the literature
3
review on family business advising, and another 18 arti-
cles were removed because they touch on advising
issues only peripherally. Based on backward citations,
we added four articles to our literature review, resulting
in a final sample of 36 psychology articles.
In a next step, we categorized the articles with regard
to their definitions, theoretical and empirical approaches,
variables, and levels. We elaborate on the findings in the
following sections of our literature review. Each of the
authors independently categorized the studies, and we
discussed the categorization for each article until agree-
ment was reached.
Advising in the Family Business and
Psychology Literature
Defining the Advisor or the Advice?
Only a few articles that we reviewed explicitly defined
the advisor. One of the most cited definitions of advisors
in the family business literature is that of Strike (2012),
who distinguishes between three types of advisors: for-
mal advisors, informal advisors, and family firm boards.
In our categorization of family business definitions,
we classify advisors by expertise based, trust based, or
group based (see Table 1). Expertise-based advisors
consists of the formal advisors who are often externally
hired (Gordini, 2012; Salvato & Corbetta, 2013) by the
family and who are either content or process experts,
providing specialized knowledge (Naldi et al., 2015)
and services to the family firm (Perry, Ring, & Broberg,
2015). In turn, trust-based advisors may be formal or
informal; however, they are the most relied upon sources
of advice based on a long-term relationship, and they
may also include family members (Naldi et al., 2015)
and firm members, such as CFOs (Hiebl, 2013). Informal
trusted advisors are not formally hired and are found
either family internally (e.g., spouses) or externally
(e.g., close friends, key employees). These informal,
hidden advisors are assumed to garner more of the fam-
ily’s trust than formally hired advisors (Cisneros &
Deschamps, 2015). Group-based advisors include not
only boards but also new categories not previously
explicitly recognized, such as family offices (Welsh,
Memili, Rosplock, Roure, & Segurado, 2013), family
councils (Suess, 2014), communities of practice
(Sorenson & Milbrandt, 2015), and peer-advice groups
(Caspersz & Thomas, 2015), suggesting that the field is
beginning to evolve.
4 Family Business Review 00(0)

Table 1. Definitional Approaches.

Definitional
approach Advising definition Author (Year) drawing on this definition

Family business Expertise based

literature Business expert Business expert advisors may be inside advisors who consist of Alderson (2009); Barbera and Hasso (2013); Benito-
advisors relatives and key nonfamily employees who work in the family Hernández, López-Cózar-Navarro, and Priede-
business. More often, advisors consist of external professionals, Bergamini (2014); Davis, Dibrell, Craig, and Green
such as accountants, lawyers, wealth advisors, HR experts, and (2013); Hiebl, Duller, and Feldbauer-Durstmuller
family enterprise advisors. These advisors work with family (2012); Lee and Danes (2012); Leung, Richardson,
enterprises in a formal capacity and are able to help family and Jaggic (2014); Naldi et al. (2015); Reddrop and
enterprises navigate through issues that are unique to family firms. Mapunda (2015); Rosensteel (2016); Salvato and
Corbetta (2013); Strike (2012); Waisner (2012)
Therapists Marriage and family therapist experts may provide additional Castanos and Welsh (2013); Cole and Johnson
practical wisdom, especially when they are trained as family (2012); Distelberg and Castanos (2012)
business advisors.
Mentors Advisors in the role of mentors provide psychosocial support. Chrisman, Dhaenens, Marler, and Vardaman
Family mentors are often family-biased and emotional, while (2017); Distelberg and Schwarz (2015); Samei and
non–family mentors provide more external, career-related advice. Feyzbakhsh (2016)
Formal, external mentoring relationships are known to increase
skills, knowledge, social networks, and self-confidence.
Trust based
Trusted advisors Trusted advisors are defined as the most relied upon external Cisneros and Deschamps (2015); McCracken (2015);
source of business advice for family firm members. They may Michel and Kammerlander (2015); Waisner (2012)
include lawyers, accountants, and consultants with whom family
members have enjoyed long-lasting professional relationships and
who are able to build trust on a relational basis. The spouse may
be one form of an often hidden trusted advisor.
Most trusted The experience and relationship of trust that develop with the Cisneros and Deschamps (2015); Strike (2013); Strike
advisors family member over a long time may allow the advisor to become and Rerup (2016)
a most trusted advisor. Most trusted advisors are cited as those
being closest to family firm members and are thereby most likely
to have the strongest influence on family firm members.
CFOs Relationships with non–family CFOs as advisors are based on trust. Gurd and Thomas (2012); Hiebl (2013)
This relationship results in less rigid control mechanisms for the
non–family CFO.
Trustees Trustees acting as advisors can be family members, the founder, Scholes and Wilson (2014)
trusted advisers, or close family friends.
Group based
Boards One of the primary tasks of boards is to provide advice. They offer Bammens, van Giles, and Voordeckers (2011); Basco
complementary expertise to management and mediate family and Rodríguez (2011); Calabro and Mussolino
conflicts; advice from external directors with functional skills and (2013); Collin and Ahlberg (2012); García-Ramos
experiences that are lacking inside the pool of family members and García-Olalla (2011); Goel, Voordeckers, van
may be an essential element for family firms to bridge the skills Gils, and van den Heuvel (2013); Gordini (2012);
gap with nonfamily firms. Leung et al. (2014); Maseda, Jainaga, and Arosa
(2014); Sitthipongpanicha and Polsirib (2015);
Stockmans, Lybaert, and Voordeckers (2013);
Woods, Dalziel, and Barton (2012); Wu (2013);
Zattoni, Gnan, and Huse (2015)
Advising ecosystem An advising ecosystem is a network of expert advisors described as Tucker (2011)
and teams an integrated financial “ecosystem” of the family. Advising teams
are a collaborative group of advisors who ensure that family
business clients receive the most effective professional support.
These groups are based on the premise that no one group of
professional advisors has all the skills needed to work successfully
with family business clients.
Communities Groups of family firm leaders who share similar concerns, problems, Caspersz and Thomas (2013); Sorenson and
of practice and interests and who work together to deepen knowledge and Milbrandt (2015)
(CoP) and expertise. Members meet regularly to provide one another with
peer leadership advice about possible solutions based on their experience in
intervention dealing with similar challenges.
Family council A governing body of family members focused on the issues Suess (2014)
most relevant to the owning family that intervenes on owner
knowledge. They provide advice on everything from educating
the family for their future responsibilities as owners to settling
disputes within the family.

(continued)
Strike et al. 5

Table 1. (continued)
Definitional
approach Advising definition Author (Year) drawing on this definition

Family offices A team of advisors who exclusively serve and represent the Welsh et al. (2013)
interests and agenda of the family. Family offices not only preserve
wealth but also advise families toward being entrepreneurial
through new venture creation and investing entrepreneurially.
Psychology Advice based
literature Categorization Advice may be categorized as distinguishing between choices (“A is Dalal and Bonaccio (2010)
better than B”) and estimations (“A will cost X”). It may include
estimated confidence of the recommendations and justifications.
Other categorizations or types of advice ordered along a single
dimension with the first being a “lower” type of advice are as
follows: solutions, meta-knowledge, problem reformulation,
validation, and legitimization.
Recommendation Advice consists of a form of recommendation or judgment Gino, Brooks, and Schweitzer (2012); MacGeorge,
concerning a specific course of action. It may be for or against Guntzviller, Hanasono, and Feng (2016); Sniezek
alternatives. It includes relevant ideas, judgments, prescriptions, and Buckley (1995); Schrah, Dalal, and Sniezek
and evaluative summaries that are communicated to a decision (2006)
maker (as opposed to simply acquired information), and it acts as
a key form of support provided to those who have a problem to
resolve or a decision to make.
Message features Advice consists of characteristics such as feasibility, politeness, or Feng and Feng (2013)
absence of limitations.
Source based
Source An advisor is the source of advice or suggestion. The source may Bonaccio and Dalal (2006)
come from one or multiple advisors and may have different
rankings of importance.
Solicitation Advice can be solicited or unsolicited. Chentsova-Dutton and Vaughn (2012)
Cost Advice may be provided for free or sold expensively. Gino (2008)
Role The advisor’s role is as a provider of socioemotional support. Bonaccio and Dalal (2006)

The few definitions identified in the psychology lit-
erature refer to advice-based and source-based defini-
tions. Advice-based definitions refer to the definition of
the advice itself, for instance, by categorizing the advice,
such as offering recommendations for or against alterna-
tives versus simply communicating the acquired infor-
mation (Gino et al., 2012), or categorizing the message
features of the advice, including feasibility, politeness,
and the absence of limitations (Feng & Feng, 2013).
Source-based advice refers to task(s) of advisors,
defined, for instance, as the “source of advice or sugges-
tion” (Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006, p. 128). The source may
come from more than one advisor with different rank-
ings of importance; it may be solicited or unsolicited
(Chentsova-Dutton & Vaughn, 2012), provided for free
or for a fee (Gino, 2008), and include the role of the
advisor as a provider of socioemotional support
(Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006). This role of a socioemotional
supporter is especially interesting, as both family firm
and psychology research has recognized the importance
of the socioemotional construct.
We summarize our findings on the definitions of the
“advisor” and the “advice” in Table 1, which provides an
overview of the commonalities and differences between the
two research streams. Overall, in family business research
the advisor is an actual individual with various characteris-
tics (e.g., experience, professional role, relationship with the
business family, formal vs. informal status) in a real-life
context. In psychology, however, the advisor as the source
of advice has an artificial role assigned typically to an
undergraduate student in an experimental setting, where the
role of the advisor as an informal or formal professional is
not specified. Precise characteristics of the advisor are not
specified, unless they are important as contingency vari-
ables for the study. Thus, the advisor definitions across both
streams are scattered, and there is no commonly agreed
upon definition of the advisor or the advice itself. While
most psychology studies are rather explicit in the form that
the advice takes, the family firm approach is broader, with
“advice” used as an umbrella term without differentiating
between different types of advice.
Theoretical Lenses
Our review reveals that there is no single comprehensive
theory to date to explain the advising process. Both the
family firm and psychology literatures have built on a
variety of theories (see Table 2). Indeed, authors draw
6 Family Business Review 00(0)
Table 2. Table of Theories.
Application of theory to explain the advice giving
Theory and advice taking processes
Family business Agency theory The constructs of informational asymmetries and Alderson (2009); Bammens et al.
literature divergent goals might help better understand
the decision making process of family firms and
its influence on firm and family outcomes.
Corporate Structures of formal and informal governance
governance that determine practices of family external and
firm internal advice seeking and taking.
Decision making Advisors need to consider that decision making Alderson (2009); Lussier and
processes are heterogeneous among family
firms and influenced by several (tacit) factors.
Knowledge sharing External knowledge sharing among advisors
and family businesses increases the quality of
the advising process itself and the outcome of
complex tasks such as succession.
Sensemaking An advisor increases the quality of the decision
making process by facilitating adaptive
sensemaking, which unfolds when doubting
sense already made.
Resource-based External advisors (e.g., accountants) increase
view through their outside knowledge and access to
networks firm and family outcomes.
Stewardship theory In family businesses, the decision maker often
does not decide purely rationally but also
considers stewardship aspects, which the
advisor has to consider while advising.
Psychology Advice response Characteristics of the advice itself (content,
literature theory politeness) affect the advice taker’s intention of et al. (2016)
implementation.
Appraisal theory of Decision making is not purely rational but
emotions takes emotional aspects (fear, joy) into
consideration, which influences the advice-
assessing process.
Construal level An advisor who is emotionally more distant
theory from the problem increasingly considers
idealistic aspects while providing advice.
JAS—Judge advisor The overlap of the system of the advice giver
system and the system of the advice taker who judges
the advice affects the decision making process.
WOA—Weight of During the decision making process, advice
advice takers weight and discount pieces of advice.
The greater the “weight” of advice, the more
substantially the judge revises initial estimates
based on that advice.
Sources
(2011); Garcia-Ramos & Garcia-
Olalla (2011); Gordini (2012);
Leung et al. (2014); Michel and
Kammerlander (2015); Wu
(2013)
Calabro and Mussolino (2013);
Leung et al. (2014); McCracken
(2015); Suess (2014), Zattoni
et al. (2015)
Sonfield (2015)
Lansberg and Gersick (2015); Su
and Dou (2013)
Strike (2013); Strike and Rerup
(2016)
Alderson (2009); Bammens et al.
(2011); Barbera and Hasso
(2013); Gordini (2012); Hiebl
(2013); Hiebl et al. (2012);
Maseda et al. (2014)
Alderson (2009); Bammens et al.
(2011); Gordini (2012); Hiebl
(2013); Naldi et al. (2015)
Feng and Feng (2013); MacGeorge
Gino et al. (2012); de Hooge,
Verlegh, and Tzioti (2014)
Danziger, Montal, and Barkan
(2012)
Bonaccio and Dalal (2006);
Budescu & Yu (2007); Gino
(2008); Sniezek and Buckley
(1995)
Gino (2008); Gino and Moore
(2007); Schultze, Rakotoarisoa,
and Schulz-Hardt (2015);
Schrah et al. (2006); Yaniv and
Milyavsky (2007)
Strike et al.
from more than 50 different theories across both litera-
ture streams, often utilizing several within a single
paper, thereby indicating considerable fragmentation
within the field. The exceptions are firm-level board
studies in the family firm domain that largely build on
agency theory. A few especially insightful studies on the
individual and dyad/group level rely on the promising
concept of family firm sensemaking (Strike, 2013;
Strike & Rerup, 2016). These studies increase our under-
standing regarding how advisors are able to aid family
firm decision makers in making sense of family and firm
issues. This ability to make sense of crucial issues is
linked to decision making, which is a key focus of the
psychology advising literature.
Applied theories used primarily in the psychology
domain score high in predictability and low in general-
izability. In both research streams, midrange theories
that would comprehensively explain processes rather
than input–output relationships are largely lacking.
One important and promising concept of the psychol-
ogy advising research stream is the “Judge-Advisor
System” (JAS), which is the most widely used lens in
research on advice giving and taking (e.g., Bonaccio &
Dalal, 2006; Budescu & Yu, 2007). JAS takes a sys-
tematic approach to describing and predicting the
behavior of the different stakeholders in the advising
process. JAS is particularly useful for investigating
and understanding the nuances of the advising process,
as it allows the study of the different perspectives of all
involved stakeholders and provides a framework to
account for varying levels of overlap—in terms of
interaction, goals, or experience—between the deci-
sion maker and advisor. JAS consists of the decision
maker (the judge) and one or more advisors. JAS
researchers study the roles of decision makers and
advisors in the decision making process (e.g., Sniezek,
Schrah, & Dalal, 2004). The decision maker seeks/
receives input from one or more people acting as advi-
sors who formulate judgments or recommend alterna-
tives, but the judge makes the final decision and is
accountable for it (Sniezek & Buckley, 1995). JAS
assumes that decision making is social in nature, espe-
cially when the decisions are important and involve
uncertainty and when decision makers consult with
others in order to increase their decision quality
(Sniezek & van Swol, 2001). JAS describes many key
aspects of decision processes in hierarchical groups
and organizations; however, the focus is often on the
decision maker rather than the advisor.
7
Empirical Approaches
Advising has been studied by using a multitude of dif-
ferent theory building and theory testing empirical
approaches that substantially differ between family firm
and psychology studies (see Tables 3 and 4). The major-
ity of the family business advising articles reviewed are
quantitative (22 out of 52); however, nearly as many are
qualitative (16). Six of the articles are conceptual, three
are review papers, three are mixed methods papers, one
is an essay that provides scholarly commentary, and one
is an editorial (Reay et al., 2013). Common to many of
the quantitative papers is a focus on board advice and
firm-level output, such as business performance vari-
ables. Most family firm advising articles focus on U.S.
or European samples and investigate family firms and
their decision makers, including CEOs, top managers,
owners, and family members.
The vast majority of psychology articles reviewed
(31 out of 36) are based on laboratory experiments and
student samples—a finding that points to interesting
future empirical approaches for family firm researchers.
One of the identified studies is a review article (Bonaccio
& Dalal, 2006), and only four use surveys. A few papers
employ more creative data analysis techniques, such as
the analysis of postings on online parenting forums
(Chentsova-Dutton & Vaughn, 2012) or simulations
(Azaria et al., 2015). A closer examination of the psy-
chology studies, however, reveals that the participants
of the experiments, in contrast to the family firm deci-
sion makers studied in the family business literature, are
mainly (undergraduate) students at the universities
where the authors are employed, which is one of the
major differences between the two fields. Moreover, the
most common geographical focus is the United States,
with a few studies focusing on Israel (Yaniv, 2004),
China (Feng & Feng, 2013), the United Kingdom
(Harvey & Fisher, 1997), and Russia (Chentsova-Dutton
& Vaughn, 2012), thus leaving large parts of the world
understudied.
Content Findings on Advising: An Input–
Process–Output Perspective
While we were reviewing the articles, an IPO frame-
work (see also Tables 3 and 4) emerged from the litera-
ture. We use this framework to structure our findings.
The constructs of both literature streams along the IPO
framework are summarized in Tables 5 and 6. Structuring
8
Table 3. Literature Review on Advising Research in Family Business.
Input category Process category Output category Level of
Authors (year) (variables) (variables) (variables) Contingencies analysis Method Key findings

Alderson (2009) Family attributes (G2) Decision making DMs mitigating Individual Qualitative G2 conduct a broader search for
(Behavior) strategies/actions knowledge, consult with multiple
advisors, and are more risk averse
than G1.
Bammens et al. Family attributes (Family Firm noneconomic CEO retirement Firm Review Review of the main tasks of boards: the
(2011) involvement) (Board roles and proximity and exercise of control and provision of
tasks) generational phase advice.
Barbera and Advisor attributes Firm economic Advisor’s Firm Quantitative External accountants have a positive
Hasso (2013) (Presence of an (Sales growth and (accountant) impact on sales growth and survival.
external accountant) survival) degree of Acquaintance works as a moderator.
acquaintance or
embeddedness
Basco and Firm attributes (Types Family noneconomic Firm Quantitative Family firms increase their performance
Rodríguez of family firms) and firm economic if they combine family- and business-
(2011) (Family and firm orientation in their decision making.
performance)
Benito- Firm attributes (Types Firm noneconomic Size and nature of Firm Quantitative Family firms are more likely to use
Hernández of family firm, firm (External advice firm external advice for HR
et al. (2014) size) for HR and legal)
Calabro and Relational attributes Firm economic Perceptions of Firm Quantitative Formal and informal governance
Mussolino (Norms, trust, board (Export intensity) competence or mechanisms among boards have a
(2013) independence) integrity positive effect on export intensity.
Caspersz and DM attributes Family members Network ties and Dyad/group Qualitative Positivity theory in family firm studies
Thomas (2013) (Leadership noneconomic teamwork quality can describe leadership intervention
intervention) (Leader positivity) activities by a facilitator.
Castanos and Advisor attributes (FB Advice giving (How Individual Qualitative Provision of a supervisory model to
Welsh (2013) advisors vs. therapists) to supervise) (Delphi) supervise the training of therapists as
family business consultant.
Cesaroni and Advice giving Decision to involve Dyad/group Qualitative Family firms are reluctant to seek
Sentuti (2017) (Succession) advisors advisors as advisors who omit the soft
issues in succession.
Cisneros and Advisor attributes Family and firm Trustworthiness Dyad/group Qualitative The importance of MTAs for
Deschamps (Advisor type) noneconomic of predecessor’s succession—can be either family or
(2015) (Succession) advisor nonfamily advisors
Cole and Johnson Advice attributes Individual Conceptual An overview of similarities between
(2012) (Family firm advising family firm and family therapy.
and therapy)

(continued)
 Table 3. (continued)

Input category Process category Output category Level of

Authors (year) (variables) (variables) (variables) Contingencies analysis Method Key findings

Collin and Firm and advisor Firm noneconomic Kinship ties/ Firm Quantitative How genetic kinship and nepotism can
Ahlberg (2012) attributes (Board’s (Board’s nepotism (Biased influence a board’s orientation toward
family composition, orientation of preference for its different functional aspects.
share of relationships) control, decision kin relatives) or
making) familiness of the
board
Chrisman et al. Advice attributes Family noneconomic Individual, Conceptual Mentoring results in different
(2017) (Mentoring) (Commitment dyad/group commitment outcomes depending on
outcomes) the familial status of the members.
Davis et al. Advisor and decision Advice giving Quality of feedback Individual, Quantitative Feedback quality mediates the
(2013) maker attributes (Adaptive behavior received dyad/group relationships between goal orientation
(Goal orientation, of advisors) and advisor behaviors.
client feedback)
Distelberg and Advisor attributes Firm noneconomic Larger ecological Individual, Qualitative Qualitative assessment of
Schwarz (2015) (Presence and (Mentoring factors dyad/group interorganizational family firm
characteristics of benefits) mentoring characteristics,
mentors) relationships, and benefits.
Distelberg and Family attributes (Family Advice giving Family firm Individual Review Guidance for family therapists who
Castanos involvement) (Therapist ecosystem either already service or want to
(2012) intervention) begin servicing family firms.
García-Ramos Advisor attributes Firm economic Firm governance Firm Quantitative Board size and firm performance are
and García- (Board characteristics) (Firm (founder-led) positively related in non–founder-led
Olalla (2011) performance) family firms.
Gersick (2015) Firm and advisor Individual Conceptual Proposes family human capital utilization
attributes (Human as a future area of research.
capital; advisor’s
attention)
Goel et al. (2013) Advisor attributes Firm noneconomic Presence of external Firm Quantitative Emotion of empathy in the family CEO
(Advisor empathy) outcomes (SEW) board and SEW can have both a direct and a
moderating influence on SEW.
Gordini (2012) Firm attributes (Inside Firm economic Generational Firm Quantitative Inside directors have a positive effect
or outside director) outcomes (Firm difference on firm performance in G1; outside
performance) directors have a positive effect on
G2+.
Gurd and Advisor attributes (Role Family noneconomic Individual Mixed Family CFO has no role conflict and a
Thomas (2012) of family CFO) (Family and methods good relationship with other family
nonfamily and nonfamily members.
relationships)

(continued)

9
10
Table 3. (continued)

Input category Process category Output category Level of

Authors (year) (variables) (variables) (variables) Contingencies analysis Method Key findings

Hiebl (2013) Firm and advisor Attributes of the Individual Conceptual When there is a family CEO, the CFO
attributes (Family role receiver and becomes more of an advisor/mentor.
CEO, CFO role) interpersonal
factors; university
degree
Hiebl et al. Firm and advisor Existence of Individual Quantitative Accountants’ roles do not differ in large
(2012) attributes (Firm nonfamily family and nonfamily firms.
size, role of the management
accountant)
Lee and Danes Advisor and advice Individual, Qualitative Advisors from different disciplines
(2012) attributes (Advice dyad/group provide unique perspectives and
type; discipline) individual advice.
Leung et al. Firm attributes Firm economic Concentration of Firm Quantitative The number of independent directors
(2014) (Independent (Firm family ownership on corporate boards might not
directors) performance) enhance firm performance.
Lussier and Firm and advisor Firm noneconomic Firm Quantitative Small firms are more likely to employ
Sonfield (2015) attributes (Firm size, (Use of outside nonfamily member managers and
outside advisors) advisors) utilize outside advisors.
Maseda et al. Firm attributes (Board Firm economic Board composition Firm Quantitative Inverted U-shaped relationship
(2014) composition/ (Firm between the proportion of outside
independence) performance) directors and firm performance.
Balance between outsiders and family
members is crucial.
McCracken Advisor attributes Firm noneconomic Individual Essay The importance of structures and
(2015) (“Best practices”) (Firm practices developed by advisors
functionality) together with families.
Michel and Advisor attributes Firm and family Role/involvement of Dyad/group Conceptual Need a balanced setup of the triadic
Kammerlander (number of advisors, noneconomic trusted advisor relationship among advisor, incumbent
(2015) advisor relationship) (Reduced agency and successor with one advisor.
conflicts)
Naldi et al. Advisor attributes Firm economic Role of generation Firm Quantitative Inverted U-shaped relationship between
(2015) (number of family (Firm that owns the firm the number of advisors and firm
advisors) performance) performance.
Perry et al. Firm and advisor Level of financial Dyad/group Quantitative Younger family firms trust family
(2015) attributes (Firm age, versus advisors more; older family firms trust
SEW, trust) socioemotional business advisors more.
wealth

(continued)
 Table 3. (continued)

Input category Process category Output category Level of

Authors (year) (variables) (variables) (variables) Contingencies analysis Method Key findings

Reay et al. (2013) Advisor and relational Individual Editorial Editorial on family firm advising.
attributes (Advisor Advisors as “translators” of
type, relationship) research knowledge into practice
implementation.
Reddrop and Advisor and DM Advice seeking Individual Mixed Cost of advice determines the
Mapunda attributes (Advisor (Amount and methods use of professional advice. Many
(2015) cost, competence) behavior) advisors lack “soft” skills, leading to
dissatisfaction.
Rosensteel Advisor attributes Firm noneconomic Individual Qualitative Overview of how advisor support in
(2016) (Advisor role, tasks) (Successful ownership transfer can contribute to
business transfer) a positive social change.
Salvato and Advisor attributes Advice giving Family member Advisor’s transitional Dyad/group Qualitative Transitional leadership role by advisors
Corbetta (Leadership style, (Leadership noneconomic leadership role helps move the succession process
(2013) support for successor) development) (Successor’s skills) forward.
Samei and Advice attributes Family and firm Individual Qualitative The application of mentoring functions
Feyzbakhsh (Mentoring functions) noneconomic to the development of a successor’s
(2016) (Successor’s competencies.
competencies)
Sitthipongpanicha Advisor attributes Firm economic Family CEO Firm Quantitative Diversity in boards of directors is
and Polsirib (Board age, diversity, (Firm value) and board positively related to family CEO-run
(2015) political ties) characteristics firm value.
Sonfield and DM attributes Decision making Firm Quantitative In firms with a higher percentage of
Lussier (2012) (Percentage of female (Use of advisors) female managers, the use of outside
managers/owners) advisors does not change.
Sorenson and Family attributes Family noneconomic Class structure Dyad/group Qualitative Transgenerational learning is needed for
Milbrandt (Learning in university (Family firm the evolution of education. Transition
(2015) programs) member between communities of practice
knowledge) (CoP) and learning communities (LCs)
is crucial.
Stockmans et al. Firm attributes Firm economic Presence of agency Firm Quantitative Conflicts between controlling and
(2013) (Proportion of outside (Earnings conflict noncontrolling shareholders, a higher
directors; CEO management) proportion of outside directors and
duality) CEO nonduality reduce earnings
management.
Strike and Rerup Advisor attributes Advice giving Family and firm Structural and Dyad/group Qualitative Mediated sensemaking: the social
(2015) (Social position, (Mediated noneconomic contextual features position, orientation, and actions used
orientation) sensemaking) (Adaptive by the advisor to facilitate adaptive
sensemaking) sensemaking.

(continued)

11
 Table 3. (continued)

12
Input category Process category Output category Level of
Authors (year) (variables) (variables) (variables) Contingencies analysis Method Key findings

Strike (2013) Advisor attributes Advice giving (MTA Family and firm Characteristics and Dyad/group Qualitative How advisors capture attention,
(Presence of a Most advising process) noneconomic competencies of influence attention, and help family
Trusted Advisor) (Firm governance) MTA members interrelate and mindfully
govern the firm.
Su and Dou Advice and advisor Mechanisms Dyad/group Qualitative Underlying mechanisms through which
(2013) attributes (Advice to improve knowledge sharing among advisors
quality, knowledge knowledge sharing enhances the quality of advising
sharing) services.
Suess (2014) Family and firm Firm economic Family’s focus on Firm Review Review revealing heterogeneity in family
attributes (Family/ and family either preserving/ governance-related topics such as
firm governance economic (Firm harvesting or boards, ambiguity regarding causality
mechanisms) performance) increasing family between governance aspects and
wealth related factors.
Tucker (2011) Family and relational Advice taking Relationships Individual Conceptual Insights and recommendations based on
attributes (Influence of between advisor the author’s experiences working as
(Relationship conflict) emotions) and family member an advisor.
von Krosigk Advice giving Family and firm Individual Qualitative Role of the advisor is often more that
(2015) (Facilitating noneconomic of a facilitator of conversations.
discussions) (Successful
succession)
Waisner (2012) Advisor attributes Family member Individual Qualitative To advise family firms successfully,
(Advisor role in noneconomic factors such as chemistry with the
succession; advisor (Better family business leader, trust, values,
selection criteria) understanding of and the involvement of nonbusiness
each other) spouses are crucial.
Welsh et al. Family attributes Family and firm Leading generations Firm Mixed Model depicting how different
(2013) (Generational noneconomic methods generations exhibit different
involvement) (Ent. orientation) perceptions of entrepreneurship
concerning family offices.
Woods et al. Firm attributes (Outside Firm noneconomic Supportive Firm Conceptual How outside board members influence
(2012) board members) (Escalation of intermediaries the antecedents and moderate the
commitment) who contribute to processes that lead to escalation of
strategic decision commitment.
making
Wu (2013) Firm attributes (Board, Firm economic Firm Quantitative Board compensation increases as board
family/nonfamily CEO) (Board members have increasing family ties.
compensation; Having family on a board increases
firm performance) performance.
Zattoni et al. Advisor attributes Firm economic Board processes Firm Quantitative Family involvement has a positive
(2015) (Family involvement; (Firm and tasks (Effort impact on effort norms and the use
board tasks) performance) norms, use of of knowledge, as well as a negative
knowledge, impact on conflicts.
conflicts)
 Table 4. Literature Review on Advising Research in Psychology.
Process category Output category
Authors (year) Input Category (variables)a (variables) (variables) Contingencies Level of analysis Method Key findings

Azaria, Rabinovich, Advice attributes (Key Advice giving Advisor’s persuasion strategy/ Dyad/group Experiments Advisor agents are able to successfully
Goldman, and pieces of information) (Strategically revealing persuasiveness persuade DMs to select an option
Kraus (2015) information) more beneficial for the advised.
Benjamin and Advisor attributes (Learning Advice giving (Advice Contextual attributes/ Dyad/group Experimentsb Advisors who have learned from
Budescu (2015) mode: advisor experience content and quality; decision attributes (Decision experience are more risk adverse in
vs. description) advisor confidence); environment whether they are their advice and share more about the
Advice taking (DM in a risky or uncertain domain) learning process versus advisers who
confidence; advice have learned from description and
utilization frequency) share more substantive information.
Bonaccio and Dalal Advisor attributes (Advisor Decision making Contextual attributes/decision Dyad/group Experimentsb Advisor expertise and advisor
(2010) expertise, confidence and (Information on attributes (Conditions of intentions are important for advice
intentions; other sources DM’s evaluations of positive/negative information taking, particularly under conditions
of advice) advisors; information and missing information) of missing information.
regarding alternatives)
Bonaccio and Dalal Advisor attributes and Advice taking (Advice Individual, dyad/ Review The Judge Advisor System (JAS)
(2006) DM affects (DM/advisor utilization; discounting; group is an important framework for
confidence; pre-advice advice weighting; understanding advising.
DM decision; solicited vs. DM and advisor
unsolicited advice) interaction)
Brandts, Groenert, Advisor attributes (Advisor Decision choice Gender and performance of DM Individual Experimentsb Advice can increase the gender gap in
and Rott (2014) experience/information (Decision to (Weak-performing/strong- decision making, particularly for high-
advantage) enter; gender) performing) performing women.
Brooks, Gino, and Advice attributes (Task Advice seeking Advisor’s Task difficulty and advisor Individual Experiments Individuals are reluctant to seek
Schweitzer (2015) difficulty), Advisor (Influence of seeking reaction attributes (Egocentrism and advice because they fear appearing
attributes (Egocentrism advice) (Perception of expertise) incompetent. DMs appear more
and expertise) advice seeker’s competent when the task is difficult
competence) and when they ask expert.
Budescu and Yu Advice seeking (DMs DM reaction DMs perception of event Dyad/group Experimentsb With multiple advice sources, DMs will
(2007) aggregate advice from (DM predictability and advisor aggregate the advice; DM’s confidence
multiple, advisors; confidence) attributes (Advisor consensus; is highest when advisors agree and
advisor agreement) confidence) show high levels of confidence.
Camachoa, de Adherence Cultural effects (Autonomy vs. Dyad/group, Quantitative Decisional empowerment decreases
Jonga, and to advice embeddedness; egalitarian Organizational adherence to expert advice.
Stremersch (Unintentional vs. hierarchical; mastery vs.
(2014) and reasoned) harmonious)
Chentsova-Dutton Advisor attributes Advice giving (Whether Decision attributes/advice giving Individual Survey Advice giving is culturally embedded.
and Vaughn (Likelihood of giving or not advice is conditions (Whether the advice
(2012) advice; culture) solicited) is solicited and perceived to be
supportive)

(continued)

13
14
Table 4. (continued)
Process category Output category
Authors (year) Input Category (variables)a (variables) (variables) Contingencies Level of analysis Method Key findings

Dalal and Bonaccio Advisor attributes (Advice Advice giving (Cue DMs motives (Maximizing Individual Experimentsb Research needs to differentiate between
(2010) alternatives; type wording), Advice accuracy and maintaining recommendations for/against options,
of decision; advisor taking (DM reactions autonomy) and differences recommendations concerning how to
expertise/credibility) to recommendations) (Individual and situational) make decisions, and alternatives.
Danziger et al. Advisor attributes (High- vs. Advice giving (Idealistic Advisor attributes (Construal Individual Experimentsb Advisors are more psychologically
(2012) low-level construal of the vs. realistic level) distant from a problem, providing
dilemma) recommendations) recommendations through a broad
perspective.
de Hooge et al. DM attributes (Positive Advice taking Perceived ability of the advisor Individual Experimentsb Anger and pride emotions decrease
(2014) and negative emotions), (Agreement with advice taking, shame and positive
Advisor attributes (Ability advisor depends on other-focused (gratitude) emotions
of advisor) emotion of DM) increase advice taking.
Effron and Miller Advisor attributes Advice taking (Advisors DMs perception of advisor Individual Experimentsb Suffering from a misdeed gives advisors
(2015) (Committing and suffering strategically highlight standing and self-righteousness the legitimacy to advise against it. If
for a misdeed) suffering to gain advisors performed misdeeds but did
standing) not suffer from them, the DM reacts
angrily.
Feng and Feng Advice attributes Advice taking Cultural effects (American vs. Individual, Experimentsb Advice content and source
(2013) (Response efficacyc, (Recipient’s evaluation Chinese); levels of individualism organizational characteristics are positively linked to
feasibility), Advisor of advice quality in and levels of collectivism advice taking. For U.S. respondents,
attributes (Expertise, Chinese vs. American the content features were more
trustworthiness, culture) cultural groups) important, whereas for the Chinese
respondents, source features were
most important.
Feng and Advice attributes (Message Advice taking (Evaluation Message factors (Politeness, Dyad/group Surveysb Source and message factors affect
MacGeorge factors), Advisor of advice quality, response efficacy, feasibility, advice taking. Advice is defined not
(2010) attributes (Source facilitation of absence of limitations, and only by what it says but also how it
factors), Decision coping, intention to confirmation) is delivered; message factors matter
attributes (Problem implement advice) more than source factors, and being
seriousness) an expert or close to the DM is
critical.
Gino et al. (2012) DM affects (Anxiety, anger; Advice seeking and DM/Advice recipient’s self- Individual Experimentsb Anxiety increases DMs’ tendency to
self-confidence) advice taking confidence seek for and use advice and decreases
(Receptivity, their capability to differentiate
reliance; information between “good” and “bad” advice.
processing; conflict of
interest)
Gino, Shang, and Relational attributes Decision making (Judging Advice attributes (Perceived Dyad/group Experiments DMs are more reliant on similar
Croson (2009) (Similarity between others’ behavior and informativeness of advice) advisors when judging their own
advisor and DM) one’s own actions) activities and on different advisors
when judging those of others.

(continued)
 Table 4. (continued)
Process category Output category
Authors (year) Input Category (variables)a (variables) (variables) Contingencies Level of analysis Method Key findings
b
Gino (2008) Advice attributes (Cost of Advice taking (Advice DMs perception of advice quality Individual Experiments Because of sunk-cost considerations,
advice) weighting, discounting, and cognitive dissonance DMs utilize paid advice more than
sunk cost) free advice.
Gino and Moore Decision attributes (Task Advice taking (Advice Advice taking conditions Individual Experimentsb DMs overweight advice on difficult tasks
(2007) difficulty) overweighting/ (Optional vs. compulsory) and discount advice on easy tasks.
underweighting)
Harvey and Fisher DM attributes (DM Advice taking (Three Advisor attributes (Expertise) Dyad/group Experimentsb All of the participants took some
(1997) experience), Advisor components of advice advice, but novices took more
attributes (Experience); taking: accepting help, advice than did more experienced
Decision attributes shift and improving decision makers; advice was sought
(Importance); Advice judgment, sharing mostly from experienced advisors;
attributes (Type) responsibility) experienced judges were better in
judging advice.
MacGeorge et al. Advisor attributes Advice utilization Situational factors (Seriousness Individual Experimentsb Indirect influence mediated by message
(2016) (Characteristics); Advice (Situational and of advice recipient’s problem); characteristics (content, politeness).
attributes (Message recipient factors) Advice recipient’s traits/ Women’s intention to implement is
content and politeness) attributes (Gender) more strongly influenced by message
content than men’s.
Mobbs et al. (2015) Advisor attributes (Number Advice taking Advisor’s Advice giving conditions/ Dyad/group Experiments Having one’s advice accepted results
of advisors) (Acceptance of advice; reaction situational factors (Self- in a specific brain activity leading to
winning [right] advice; (Advisor brain relevance situations) the “reward area.” Effect is strongest
selection among activity) when only one advisor’s advice is
advised options) accepted.
Rader, Soll, and DM attributes (DM opinion); Advice taking (Forming Advisor attributes (Confidence Individual Experiments Push-away effect: DMs who could
Larrick (2015) Advisor attributes of independent in advice) not form their own opinion before
(Confidence) opinions) receiving advice deviate more from
the advice than those who form an
advanced opinion.
Reich and Tormala Advice attributes (number Advice taking (Weighting DM reaction Advice giving conditions/ Individual Experiments Contradicting oneself can lead
(2013) of advice sources); DM conflicting advice (Persuasive decision attributes (Strength/ to increased persuasiveness.
attributes (Attitude to conditions; argument impact) quality of argument); Advisor Contradictions introduce a persuasive
advice); Advisor attributes strength and quality; trustworthiness advantage only when they come from
(Advisor trust) message consistency) a single source and when trust is high.
Sah, Loewenstein, Advisor attributes (Conflict Advice utilization (Trust Advice disclosure conditions Dyad/group Experiments Disclosure of conflicting interest results
and Cain (2013) of interest) in the advice, pressure (Disclosure from external in increased pressure to comply with
to comply with advice) source); Decision attributes/ advice, and pressure is reduced if
advice taking conditions disclosure is made by an external
(Decision done in private) party, if the disclosure is not common
knowledge, if the DM can change the
decision in the future.

(continued)

15
16
Table 4. (continued)
Process category Output category
Authors (year) Input Category (variables)a (variables) (variables) Contingencies Level of analysis Method Key findings
b
Schrah et al. (2006) Decision attributes (Access Decision making (DMs’ Advisor training and task Individual Experiments DMs seek advice with increasing task
to expert advice; task information acquisition complexity complexity, agreement with advisors
complexity) processes; expert increased; advice sought to confirm
advice) and scrutinize; advice taken to
increase accuracy, not to minimize
effort.
Schultze et al. DM attributes and Advice Advice utilization Advisor attributes (Competence) Dyad/group Experimentsb Curvilinear relationship between
(2015) attributes (Distance (Advice utilization/ distance of advice and initial opinion
between initial opinion weighting, confidence and advice taking. Advice is weighted
and advice) in DM’s opinion) less when the distance is low or high.
Seiders, Flynn, Advice giving Advice Perceived self-efficacy of advice Dyad/group Quantitative Frequency of advice giving and focus
Berry, and Haws (Frequency, negative adherence recipients and perceived efficacy on negative implications increase the
(2014) consequences, (Adherence of advisor patient’s adherence to the doctor’s
efficacy) intentions; advice.
time and cost
to serve)
Sniezek and Buckley Advice attributes (Decision Advice taking (Impact of Decision choice Advisor confidence and Dyad/group Experimentsb Dependent, independent and cued
(1995) making settings/type of advice vs. DM’s initial (Decision disagreements decision making settings lead to
options) choice) accuracy) differences in terms of decision
accuracy.
Tost et al. (2012) Advisor attributes Advice weighting DMs affect (Feelings of Individual Experimentsb DMs with low or medium perceived
(Perceived power; (Discounting/weighing competitiveness and levels of power discount expert
expert/novice advisors); advice) confidence) advice less than novice advice; DMs
DM attributes with perceived high levels of power
(Competitiveness; discount advice from all advisors
confidence; mood) (unless they are in a cooperative
mood).
Tzioti, Wierenga, Advice attributes (Intuitive Advice utilization Advisor attributes (Level of Individual Experiments The utilization of intuition-based advice
and van Osselaer vs. analytical); Advisor (Utilization of intuitive seniority); Decision attributes/ depends on advisor seniority and
(2014) attributes (Seniority); advice) situational factors (Intuition- the type of task. Typically, decision
Decision attributes (Task inducing task) makers value analytical advice more.
type)

(continued)
 Table 4. (continued)
Process category Output category
Authors (year) Input Category (variables)a (variables) (variables) Contingencies Level of analysis Method Key findings
b
van Swol (2009) Advisor attributes Advice utilization Advisor attributes (confidence) Individual Experiments DMs who are suspicious about advisors’
(Confidence); DM (DM primed to be motives are less likely to accept
attributes (Suspicions of suspicious; ability advice, but they are not better than
advisor goals) to detect advisor nonsuspicious DMs at detecting
motives) motives.
Webb (2011) Advisor attributes (Advisor Decision making Advice task Advisor attributes Dyad/group Experimentsb DMs are more likely to follow advice of
characteristics: gender, (Underlying beliefs, (Locating a (Trustworthiness) male advisors and perceive them as
culture) prejudices, undesirable token) more trustworthy.
influences)
Yaniv (2004) DM, advisor and advice Advice taking Advice recipient/DM attributes Individual Experimentsb Taking advice increases the accuracy of
attributes (DM vs. advisor (Weighting, (Level of knowledge); Advice decision making: DMs egocentrically
opinion; advice distance) discounting) attributes (Advice distance) discount advice; this is more the case
for knowledgeable DMs and distant
advice.
Yaniv and DM attributes (DM opinion); Advice taking (Weighting Advice taking condition (When Individual Experiments Advice increases accuracy; discounting
Kleinberger Advisor attributes and discounting) feedback was given/not given to is sensitive to the quality of the DM’s
(2000) (Advisor reputation) advice recipients) estimates and the quality of the
advice Building a good reputation
takes longer than destroying a good
reputation.
Yaniv and Milyavsky Advice attributes (Distance Advice taking Decision attributes (Revision rule Individual Experimentsb Revising one’s opinion based on advice
(2007) of advice from DM (Discounting: DM use used by DM) increases the accuracy of the final
opinion) advice self-centeredly) decision. With multiple sources of
advice, DMs discount distant ones.

a
Due to space constraints, we do not include all variables, but we provide an example of those used in the respective studies. The full list of variables is available from the authors upon request. bStudies
using experiments/surveys drawing on student samples. cThe extent to which the advised course of action is capable of solving or alleviating the recipient’s problematic situation.

17
18
Table 5. Family Business Categorization of Variables.

General variable
IPO category category Variable details Representative examples of authors (year)
Input Family attributes Generation; Family involvement; Education; Alderson (2009); Bammens et al. (2011); Distelberg and Castanos (2012);
Family governance mechanisms Lansberg and Gersick (2015); Sorenson and Milbrandt (2015); Suess
(2014); Welsh et al. (2013)
DM attributes Leadership intervention; Feedback; Caspersz and Thomas (2013); Davis et al. (2013); Reddrop and Mapunda
Competence; Gender (2015); Sonfield and Lussier (2012)
Advisor attributes Advisor presence; Number; Type (therapist, Barbera and Hasso (2013); Castanos and Welsh (2013); Cisneros and
accountant, family); Discipline; Cost; Deschamps (2015); Cole and Johnson (2012); Collin and Ahlberg (2012);
Role; Tasks; External versus internal; Davis et al. (2013); Distelberg and Schwarz (2015); García-Ramos
Characteristics; Empathy; Attention; and García-Olalla (2011); Gersick (2015); Goel et al. (2013); Gurd
Trustworthiness; Goal orientation; Share and Thomas (2012); Hiebl (2013); Hiebl et al. (2012); Lee and Danes
of relationships; Leadership style; Successor (2012); Lussier and Sonfield (2015); Michel and Kammerlander (2015);
support; Board member age, diversity, McCracken (2015); Naldi et al. (2015); Perry et al. (2015); Reay et al.
political ties; Social position, orientation; (2013); Rosensteel (2016); Reddrop and Mapunda (2015); Salvato and
Knowledge sharing Corbetta (2013); Samei and Feyzbakhsh (2016); Sitthipongpanicha and
Polsirib (2015); Strike (2013); Strike and Rerup (2016); Su and Dou
(2013); Waisner (2012); Zattoni et al. (2015)
Firm attributes Type of family firm; Firm size; Firm age; Basco and Rodríguez (2011); Benito-Hernández et al. (2014); Collin and
Board composition (family, internal, Ahlberg (2012); Gersick (2015); Gordini (2012); Hiebl (2013); Hiebl
external); Human capital; Family CEO; CEO et al. (2012); Leung et al. (2014); Lussier and Sonfield (2015); Maseda
duality; SEW; Firm governance mechanisms et al. (2014); Perry et al. (2015); Stockmans et al. (2013); Suess (2014);
Woods et al. (2012); Wu (2013)
Relational attributes Norms, trust, board independence; Calabro and Mussolino (2013); Reay et al. (2013); Tucker (2011)
Relationship; Relationship conflict
Advice attributes Mentoring; Type; Quality Chrisman et al. (2017); Lee and Danes (2012); Su and Dou (2013)
Process Advice giving How to supervise; Succession; Adaptive Castanos and Welsh (2013); Cesaroni and Sentuti (2017); Davis et al.
behavior of advisors; Therapist (2013); Distelberg and Castanos (2012); Lansberg and Gersick (2015);
intervention; Facilitation of transition; Salvato and Corbetta (2013); Strike (2013); Strike and Rerup (2016); Su
Leadership development; Mediated and Dou (2013); von Krosigk (2015)
sensemaking; MTA advising process;
Mechanisms to improve knowledge sharing;
Facilitating discussions

(continued)
 Table 5. (continued)
General variable
IPO category category Variable details
Advice taking Influence of emotions
Advice seeking Amount and behavior
Decision making Behavior; Use of advisors
Output Firm noneconomic Roles and tasks of Boards; HR and legal
external advice; Decision to involve
advisors; Succession; Board’s orientation
of control and decision making; Mentoring
benefits; SEW; Use of outside advisor;
Firm functionality; Reduced agency
conflicts; Successor’s competencies; Firm
governance; Entrepreneurial orientation;
Escalation of commitment
Firm economic Sales growth and survival; Firm performance;Barbera and Hasso (2013); Basco and Rodríguez (2011); Calabro and
Export intensity; Firm value; Earnings
management; Board compensation
Family noneconomic Family performance; Leader positivity;
Succession; Commitment outcomes; Family
and nonfamily relationships; Reduced
agency conflicts; Successor’s competencies; and Feyzbakhsh (2016); Sorenson and Milbrandt (2015); Strike (2013);
Family firm member knowledge; Adaptive
sensemaking; Family governance;
Better understanding of each other;
Entrepreneurial orientation
Family economic Firm performance on family wealth
19
Representative examples of authors (year)
Tucker (2011)
Reddrop and Mapunda (2015)
Alderson (2009); Sonfield and Lussier (2012)
Bammens et al. (2011); Benito-Hernández et al. (2014); Cesaroni and
Sentuti (2017); Cisneros and Deschamps (2015); Collin and Ahlberg
(2012); Distelberg and Schwarz (2015); Goel et al. (2013); Lussier and
Sonfield (2015); McCracken (2015); Michel and Kammerlander (2015);
Rosensteel (2016); Samei and Feyzbakhsh (2016); Strike (2013); von
Krosigk (2015); Welsh et al. (2013); Woods et al. (2012)
Mussolino (2013); García-Ramos and García-Olalla (2011); Gordini
(2012); Leung et al. (2014); Maseda et al. (2014); Naldi et al. (2015);
Sitthipongpanicha and Polsirib (2015); Stockmans et al. (2013); Suess
(2014); Wu (2013); Zattoni et al. (2015)
Basco and Rodríguez (2011); Caspersz and Thomas (2013); Chrisman
et al. (2017); Cisneros and Deschamps (2015); Gurd and Thomas (2012);
Michel and Kammerlander (2015); Salvato and Corbetta (2013); Samei
Strike and Rerup (2016); von Krosigk (2015); Waisner (2012); Welsh
et al. (2013)
Suess (2014)
(continued)
20
Table 5. (continued)

General variable
IPO category category Variable details Representative examples of authors (year)
Contextual Decision maker DMs mitigating strategies/actions; Network Alderson (2009); Caspersz and Thomas (2013); Davis et al. (2013); Hiebl
factors/ ties and teamwork quality; Quality of (2013)
interaction feedback; Attributes of the role receiver
effects and interpersonal factors; University degree
Advisor Advisor’s (accountant) degree of Barbera and Hasso (2013); Cisneros and Deschamps (2015); Collin and
acquaintance or embeddedness; Ahlberg (2012); Michel and Kammerlander (2015); Salvato and Corbetta
Trustworthiness of predecessor’s (2013); Strike (2013); Strike and Rerup (2016)
advisor; Kinship ties/nepotism (biased
preference for kin relatives) or familiness
of the board; Role/involvement of trusted
advisors; Advisor’s transitional leadership
role; Structural and contextual features;
Advisor’s characteristics/competencies
Firm CEO retirement proximity and generational Bammens et al. (2011); Benito-Hernández et al. (2014); Calabro and
phase; Size and nature of firm; Firm Mussolino (2013); García-Ramos and García-Olalla (2011); Goel et al.
governance; Board processes and tasks; (2013); Gordini (2012); Hiebl et al. (2012); Leung et al. (2014); Maseda
Perceptions of competence or integrity; et al. (2014); Naldi et al. (2015); Sitthipongpanicha and Polsirib (2015);
Presence of external board; Generational Stockmans et al. (2013); Woods et al. (2012); Zattoni et al. (2015)
difference; Existence of nonfamily
management; Concentration of family
ownership; Board composition; Family
CEO and board characteristics; Presence of
agency conflicts; Supportive intermediaries
Ecosystem Ecological factors; Family firm ecosystem Distelberg and Schwarz (2015); Distelberg and Castanos (2012)
Family Level of financial versus socioemotional Perry et al. (2015); Sorenson and Milbrandt (2015); Suess (2014); Welsh
wealth; Class structure; Family’s focus on et al. (2013)
preserving/harvesting or increasing family
wealth; Leading generations
Relational Relationships between advisor and family Tucker (2011)
 Table 6. Psychology Categorization of Variables.

General variable
IPO category category Variable details Authors (year)
Input Advisor attributes Experience versus description; Expertise; Ability; Confidence; Benjamin and Budescu (2015); Bonaccio and Dalal (2010);
Intentions; Credibility; Trust; Characteristics; Gender; Brandts et al. (2014); Brooks et al. (2015); Chentsova-
Information advantage; Egocentrism; Likelihood of giving Dutton and Vaughn (2012); Dalal and Bonaccio (2010);
advice; Culture; High versus low level construal of the Danziger et al. (2012); de Hooge et al. (2014); Effron and
dilemma; Committing and suffering for a misdeed; Source Miller (2015); Feng and Feng (2013); Feng and MacGeorge
factors; Number of advisors; Conflicts of interest; Perceived (2010); Harvey and Fisher (1997); MacGeorge et al.
power; Expert versus novice advisors; Reputation (2016); Mobbs et al. (2015); Rader et al. (2015); Reich and
Tormala (2013); Sah et al. (2013); Tost et al. (2012); van
Swol (2009); Webb (2011); Yaniv and Kleinberger (2000)
Decision maker Self-confidence; Pre-advice DM decision; Positive and negative Bonaccio and Dalal (2006); de Hooge et al. (2014); Gino
attributes emotions; Anxiety; Anger; Self-confidence; Experience; DM et al. (2012); Harvey and Fisher (1997); Rader et al.
opinion; Attitude to advice; DM distance between initial (2015); Reich and Tormala 2013); Schultze et al. (2015);
opinion and advice; Competitiveness; Mood; Suspicions of Tost et al. (2012); van Swol (2009); Yaniv and Kleinberger
advisor goals (2000)
Advice attributes Key pieces of information; Solicited versus unsolicited advice; Azaria et al. (2015); Bonaccio and Dalal (2006); Bonaccio
Sources; Number of advice sources; Task difficulty; Response and Dalal (2010); Brooks et al. (2015); Feng and Feng
efficacy and feasibility; Message factors; Cost; Type; Message (2013); Feng and MacGeorge (2010); Gino (2008); Harvey
content and politeness; Distance between initial opinion and and Fisher (1997); MacGeorge et al. (2016); Reich and
advice; Intuitive versus analytical; Distance of advice from Tormala (2013); Schultze et al. (2015); Sniezek and
DM opinion; Advice alternatives Buckley (1995); Tzioti et al. (2014); Yaniv (2004); Yaniv
and Milyavsky (2007)
Decision attributes Problem seriousness; Task difficulty; Task complexity; Feng and MacGeorge (2010); Gino and Moore (2007);
Importance; Access to expert advice; Intuitive versus Harvey and Fisher (1997); Schrah et al. (2006); Tzioti et al.
analytical (2014)
Relational Similarity between advisor and DM Gino et al. (2009)
attributes
(continued)

21
22
Table 6. (continued)

General variable
IPO category category Variable details Authors (year)
Process Advice giving Strategically revealing information; Advice content and quality; Azaria et al. (2015); Benjamin and Budescu (2015);
Advisor confidence; Whether advice is solicited; Idealistic Chentsova-Dutton and Vaughn (2012); Dalal and Bonaccio
versus realistic recommendations; Cue wording; Frequency; (2010); Danziger et al. (2012); Seiders et al. (2014)
Negative consequences; Efficacy
Advice taking DM confidence; Advice utilization frequency; Advice Benjamin and Budescu (2015); Bonaccio and Dalal (2006);
utilization; Advice utilization: Situational and recipient Dalal and Bonaccio (2010); de Hooge et al. (2014); Effron
factors; Advice utilization: Trust in the advice, pressure to and Miller (2015); Feng and MacGeorge (2010); Feng and
comply with advice; Advice utilization/weighting: confidence Feng (2013); Gino (2008); Gino et al. (2012); Gino and
in DM’s opinion; Utilization of intuitive advice; Advice Moore (2007); Harvey and Fisher (1997); MacGeorge
utilization: DM primed to be suspicious; Ability to detect et al. (2016); Mobbs et al. (2015); Rader et al. (2015);
advisor motives; Discounting; Discounting: DM use advice Reich and Tormala (2013); Sah et al. (2013); Schultze et al.
self-centeredly; Advice weighting; Advice overweighting/ (2015); Sniezek and Buckley (1995); Tost et al. (2012);
underweighting; Weighting conflicting advice conditions; DM Tzioti et al. (2014); van Swol (2009); Yaniv (2004); Yaniv
and advisor interaction; DM reactions to recommendations; and Kleinberger (2000); Yaniv and Milyavsky (2007)
Agreement with advisor depending on emotion of DM;
Advisors strategically highlight suffering to gain standing;
Recipient’s evaluation of advice quality in Chinese versus
American cultural groups; Evaluation of advice; Quality,
facilitation of coping, intention to implement advice; Reliance;
Information processing; Sunk cost; Three components
of advice taking: accepting help, shifting and improving
judgment; Sharing responsibility; Acceptance of advice;
Winning (right) advice; Selection among advised options;
Forming of independent opinions; Argument strength and
quality; Message consistency; Impact of advice versus DM’s
initial choice
Decision making Information on DM’s evaluations of advisors; Information Bonaccio and Dalal (2010); Gino et al. (2009); Schrah et al.
regarding alternatives; Judging others’ behavior and one’s (2006); Webb (2011)
own actions; DMs’ information acquisition processes; Expert
advice; Underlying beliefs, prejudices, undesirable influences
Advice seeking How seeking advice influence; DMs aggregate advice from Brooks et al. (2015); Budescu and Yu (2007); Gino et al.
multiple advisors; Advisor agreement; Conflict of interest (2012)

(continued)
 Table 6. (continued)

General variable
IPO category category Variable details
Output Decision choice Decision to enter; Gender; Decision accuracy
Advisor’s reaction Perception of advice seeker’s competence; Advisor brain
activity
DM reaction DM confidence; Persuasive impact
Adherence to Unintentional and reasoned; Adherence intentions; Time and
advice cost to serve
Advice task Locating a token
Contextual Advisor attributes Persuasion strategy/persuasiveness; Egocentrism and
factors/ expertise; Consensus; Confidence; Construal level;
interaction Perceived ability of the advisor; Expertise; Competence;
effects Level of seniority; Trustworthiness; Disagreements; Advisor
training; Perceived efficacy of advisor
Decision maker Gender; DM performance (weak vs. strong); DM perception
attributes of event predictability; DM motives (maximizing accuracy
and maintaining autonomy) and differences (individual
and situational); DM perception of advisor standing and
self-righteousness; DM perception of advice quality and
cognitive dissonance; DM self-confidence; DM feelings of
competitiveness and confidence; DM level of knowledge;
Perceived self-efficacy
Advice attributes Whether the advice is solicited and perceived to be
supportive; Message factors (politeness, response efficacy,
feasibility, absence of limitations, and confirmation);
Perceived informativeness of advice; Advice distance
Decision attributes Task difficulty; Intuition-inducing task; Revision rule used by
DM; Seriousness of problem; Task complexity; Strength/
quality of argument
Environmental/ Decision environment whether they are in a risky or uncertain
conditional domain; Conditions of positive/negative information
attributes and missing information; Cultural effects (autonomy vs.
embeddedness; egalitarian vs. hierarchical; mastery vs.
harmonious); Cultural effects (American vs. Chinese); Levels
of individualism and levels of collectivism; Advice taking
conditions (optional vs. compulsory); Advice taking condition
(when feedback was given/not given to advice recipients);
Advice giving conditions (self-relevance situations); Advice
disclosure conditions (disclosure from external source);
Decision conditions (decision done in private)
Authors (year)
Brandts et al. (2014); Sniezek and Buckley (1995)
Brooks et al. (2015); Mobbs et al. (2015)
Budescu and Yu (2007); Reich and Tormala (2013)
Camachoa et al. (2014); Seiders et al. (2014)
Webb (2011)
Azaria et al. (2015); Brooks et al. (2015); Budescu and Yu
(2007); Danziger et al. (2012); de Hooge et al. (2014);
Harvey and Fisher (1997); Rader et al. (2015); Reich
and Tormala (2013); Schrah et al. (2006); Schultze et al.
(2015); Seiders et al. (2014); Sniezek and Buckley (1995);
Tzioti et al. (2014); van Swol (2009); Webb (2011)
Brandts et al. (2014); Budescu and Yu (2007); Dalal and
Bonaccio (2010); Effron and Miller (2015); Gino (2008);
Gino et al. (2012); MacGeorge et al. (2016); Seiders et al.
(2014); Tost et al. (2012); Yaniv (2004)
Chentsova-Dutton and Vaughn (2012); Feng and
MacGeorge (2010); Gino et al. (2009); Yaniv (2004)
Brooks et al. (2015); MacGeorge et al. (2016); Reich and
Tormala (2013); Schrah et al. (2006); Tzioti et al. (2014);
Yaniv and Milyavsky (2007)
Benjamin and Budescu (2015); Bonaccio and Dalal (2010);
Camachoa et al. (2014); Feng and Feng (2013); Gino and
Moore (2007); Mobbs et al. (2015); Reich and Tormala
(2013); Sah et al. (2013); Yaniv and Kleinberger (2000)

23
24
the literature using an IPO framework allows us to cat-
egorize the variables from both the family business and
psychology literature, revealing patterns and gaps both
across and within both disciplines. Below, we discuss
our major findings following the IPO structure for fam-
ily business and psychology research.
Input Variables. For input-related variables, both litera-
ture streams investigate variables that are related to the
attributes of the actors in the advising process, namely,
the advisor and the decision maker as well as with the
relational aspects. Both fields have equally studied the
advisor attributes and have drawn complementary con-
clusions (see Tables 5 and 6). For example, family firm
studies have highlighted the importance of an advisor’s
neutral role (Michel & Kammerlander, 2015) for under-
standing family firm members’ motives and emotions
(Goel et al., 2013) and the importance of characteristics
such as loyalty, commitment, qualifications, indepen-
dence, objectivity, and sensitivity (Reddrop & Mapunda,
2015). Psychology research on advising, in turn, has
emphasized the importance of the advisor’s trustworthi-
ness (e.g., Feng & Feng, 2013; Feng and MacGeorge,
2010). Decision maker attributes are more often studied
in psychology and only rarely in family business (see
Table 5 for exceptions). The psychology literature finds,
for example, that the emotions of the decision maker
play an important role in advice taking: anger and pride
decrease decision makers’ advice taking, whereas shame
and gratitude increase advice taking (de Hooge et al.,
2014). While both research streams have dedicated
much effort to understanding such individual-level input
factors, dyad/group-level input factors such as relational
attributes have surprisingly rarely been studied in either
field. Exceptions reveal that relational norms, such as
trust in the advisor, affect export intensity (Calabro &
Mussolino, 2013) or that similarity between the advisor
and decision maker increases advice taking (Gino et al.,
2009).
Psychology research has strongly focused on attri-
butes of the decision/task and attributes of the advice;
such studies are largely missing in research on family
firm advising. Psychology scholars have argued and
empirically shown, for instance, that task difficulty
(Gino & Moore, 2007) or task importance (Harvey &
Fisher, 1997) affect a decision maker’s willingness to
follow advice. In addition, message features, such as the
politeness with which the advice is communicated (Feng
Family Business Review 00(0)
& Mac George, 2010), the cost of advice (Gino, 2008),
the number of advising sources (Reich & Tormala,
2013), and the distance of advice (defined as how much
the advisor’s recommendation differs from the decision
maker’s initial “gut” feeling; Yaniv, 2004; Yaniv &
Milyavsky, 2007), influence advice taking.
While psychology research lacks organizational-
level studies on input factors, family firm research has
highlighted specific firm attributes and family attributes.
These studies reveal, for instance, that smaller (Lussier
& Sonfield, 2015) family firms seek outside advice
more often. The advice taking of family firms is further
affected by the presence, role, and tasks of boards
(Bammens et al., 2011; Collin & Ahlberg, 2012).
Process Variables. Both family business and psychology
advising researchers have dedicated at least some effort
to understanding advice giving processes. The few avail-
able family business studies have examined the pro-
cesses of how advisors support the family business by
facilitating family firm transition during succession
(Lansberg & Gersick, 2015; von Krosigk, 2015) and
how advisors’ interim leadership positions can foster
smooth succession (Salvato & Corbetta, 2013). More-
over, family business studies shed light on the advice
giving process by studying the advisor’s behavioral
adaptation (Davis et al., 2013) and by investigating how
advisors capture and guide attention (Strike, 2013) or
mediate the decision maker’s sensemaking (Strike &
Rerup, 2016). Instead of studying the advisor’s role and
behavior along the process, psychology studies paid
attention to understanding the impact of an advisor’s
specific “framing” of advice (Dalal & Bonaccio, 2010)
and communication (Benjamin & Budescu, 2015) as
well as the frequency with which the advisor provides
recommendations throughout the process (Seiders et al.,
2014).
In addition to advice giving, psychology research has
also produced an impressive number of studies on
advice taking and decision making—a research area
understudied among family business scholars. In par-
ticular, the psychology literature has largely focused on
studying what decision makers actually do with the
advice that they receive. For example, it reveals that cer-
tain emotions of the decision maker can either increase
or decrease his or her likelihood to take the advice (de
Hooge et al., 2014) and his or her perceived pressure to
comply with the advice (Sah et al., 2013). Moreover,
Strike et al.
psychology studies on decision making show that deci-
sion makers often evaluate the advisor (Bonaccio &
Dalal, 2010) and his or her specific behavior (Gino
et al., 2009) instead of the advice itself. One of the most
frequently studied process variables in psychology
research on advice taking is advice weighting.
Psychology research has developed a systematic mea-
sure of the advisor’s influence on the decision maker’s
advice taking: the “weight of advice” (WOA; e.g., Gino,
2008; Tost et al., 2012; Yaniv & Kleinberger, 2000).
While not a process in itself, WOA is a process variable,
since it systematically captures the extent to which the
respondent follows advice.
In contrast to psychology studies, family business
studies on advice taking and decision making emphasize
the influence of personal or contextual aspects on how
family firm members take decisions. Sonfield and
Lussier (2012), for example, show that female managers
are more likely to rely on group as opposed to individual
decision making. Moreover, Alderson (2009) finds that
compared with the founder, the second generation is
more rational and deliberate in its decision making, con-
ducts a broader search for knowledge, and is more likely
to turn to others for advice. As such, process variables in
family firm advising often include the firm and, to a
lesser degree, family level, whereas psychology research
investigates the micro-foundations of advice giving and
advice taking mostly at the individual or dyad (advisor
and decision maker) level.
A niche topic of process studies relates to advice
seeking. A family business study shows that family firm
decisions makers are less inclined to ask for advice
when it is costly, when they have experienced bad advice
in the past, and when the advisor lacks soft skills
(Reddrop & Mapunda, 2015). Psychology studies dive
deeper into the antecedents of advice seeking by explor-
ing the decision maker’s cognitive and emotional pro-
cesses. Exemplary studies have found that anxiety and
conflicts of interest influence advice seeking (Gino
et al., 2012) and that decision makers are less likely to
seek advice when tasks are perceived to be easy because
they fear appearing incompetent (Brooks et al., 2015).
Output Variables. While output variables play an impor-
tant role in both family firm and psychology studies, the
focus and level of the studied variables substantially dif-
fer across these disciplines. Family business research
mainly focuses on the family and firm level and on
25
(external) outcomes, such as the firm or family economic
and noneconomic consequences of the advising process.
Psychology research, however, mostly focuses on indi-
vidual-level outcomes, with an emphasis on actor-,
advice-, and decision-related (internal) outcomes.
Studies on firm economic outcomes typically investi-
gate the effect of advising on classical outputs such as
sales growth and survival (Barbera & Hasso, 2013) or
firm performance (Naldi et al., 2015). In contrast, stud-
ies on firm noneconomic outcomes investigate complex
output measures, such as board effectiveness (Bammens
et al., 2011), human resource and legal affairs (Benito-
Hernández et al., 2014), and socioemotional wealth
(Goel et al., 2013).
Family business research on family-member eco-
nomic outcomes focuses on the effect of advising on
family wealth (Suess, 2014), whereas that on family-
member noneconomic outcomes explores how the attri-
butes of the advisor, the advice, and the advising process
lead to outcomes such as positivity among family busi-
ness leaders (Caspersz & Thomas, 2013), increased
commitment among family members (Chrisman et al.,
2017), and greater successor skills (Salvato & Corbetta,
2013) and competencies (Samei & Feyzbakhsh, 2016).
These studies thus recognize that advice giving and tak-
ing have an additional emotional, psychological, or edu-
cational effect on family members that goes beyond the
potential monetary benefit associated with better deci-
sion making.
In stark contrast, studies from psychology focus their
outcomes on the individual level, particularly the advi-
sor, the decision maker, or the advice and decision. With
regard to advice- or decision-related outcomes, psychol-
ogy studies research the antecedents underlying whether
the advice was followed or rejected. They also investi-
gate various outcome possibilities (“advice discount-
ing,” i.e., the advice was partly but not completely
followed) in between rejection and acceptance. Further
studies investigate whether the decisions taken are actu-
ally more accurate or correct when advice is followed.
Moreover, psychology researchers have also studied the
effect on the decision maker, such as his or her level of
confidence after advice taking (Budescu & Yu, 2007).
Concerning outcomes related to the advisor’s behavior,
advisor egocentrism and expertise have been found to
positively moderate the relationship between a decision
makers’ engagement in advice seeking and his or her
appearance of competence (Brooks et al., 2015).
26
Discussion, Opportunities for Future
Research, and Conclusion
In her review, Strike (2012) finds that the literature on
family firm advising is principally prescriptive in nature,
largely consisting of contributions written by practitio-
ners, and calls for studies with increased academic rigor.
The lack of academic validation coincides with the small
number of empirical studies in the field until 2012. In
her review, Strike (2012) develops a framework consist-
ing of advisor characteristics and types, the intervention
process and advising models, and outcomes. Her frame-
work reveals a great need for the development of a theo-
retical understanding of the internal processes and
systems of advising answering how and why questions
that remain so elusive.
Since 2012, the scholarly literature on family busi-
ness advising has moved forward considerably. There
have been numerous insightful qualitative studies on,
for example, how advisors can increase a successor’s
competencies (Salvato & Corbetta, 2013) or how they
slow down the decision making process to allow for
greater sensemaking (Strike & Rerup, 2016). There have
also been increasingly quantitative contributions inves-
tigating the relationship between advisors and firm eco-
nomic outcomes (e.g., Barbera & Hasso, 2013; Calabro
& Mussolino, 2013; Naldi et al., 2015). However, much
work remains to be done to unpack the black box of the
process and internal structures of family firm advising.
By drawing on research on advising in psychology, we
begin to address many of these enquiries.
While this literature review reveals that research
within both the family firm and psychology literature
has made substantial progress in understanding advis-
ing, the two disciplines have largely worked in isola-
tion,5 signifying the notable opportunities for future
research and mutual learning. To date, family firm
scholars have primarily explored the relationship
between advising input and firm/family economic and
noneconomic outcomes. In contrast, psychology schol-
ars have staunchly emphasized the process of advice
taking. Family firm advising research has mainly taken
a firm-level, general management approach to under-
standing advising, while psychology researchers have
focused on individual-level micro-foundations, such as
emotions—which have started to pervade family firm
research only recently (Shepherd, 2016). Whereas the
family firm literature might suffer from a sweeping
approach to advising that does not enable the isolation
Family Business Review 00(0)
of effects (e.g., separating egocentric discounting from
discounting due to inferior advice quality), the value
provided by psychology research is diminished by its
fragmented empirical and theoretical approach, which
impedes a holistic understanding of the advising process
and its neglect of context, as illustrated by the focus on
student samples.
Both family firm research and psychology research
have therefore explored the same phenomenon, namely,
advising, but from different perspectives. The two disci-
plines ask different questions and rely on alternate theo-
ries and methodological approaches. These differences
provide an opportunity for family firm advising research
to draw on insights from psychology to fill the black box
of advising. Below, we identify nine research gaps fol-
lowing the IPO framework and levels of analysis and
derive 27 research questions with an overall aim to
inspire future work on family firm advising.
Future Research Opportunities Derived From
the IPO Framework
Table 7 and the ensuing section identify a blueprint to
guide future scholars. Figures 1 and 2 provide a graphi-
cal overview of the emphasis of extant family business
(Figure 1) and psychology (Figure 2) research on advis-
ing. In detailing the nine salient research gaps, this
review identifies constructs, theories, and methodologi-
cal approaches from psychology that inform family
business research on both advising and family firm–spe-
cific idiosyncrasies, such as emotional attachment, fam-
ily-centered goals, and owner-managers’ experience,
that might provide an interesting context for advising
studies. The research agenda is not all inclusive; how-
ever, it focuses on highly relevant and interesting
research questions that will aid future scholars in unlock-
ing and deepening our understanding of the internal
structures and processes held within the black box of
family business advising.
Inputs of Effective Family Business Advice Giving. With
few exceptions (Cole & Johnson, 2012; Lee & Danes,
2012), “advice” is generally treated as a blanket con-
cept in the family firm literature, with little thought
given to teasing out the specific attributes of the
advice, advisor, or environment of the advising pro-
cess. Conversely, psychology advising research both
recognizes and disentangles the various attributes of
the advice and the advisor as well as their impact on
 Table 7. Overview of Research Opportunities Derived From the IPO Framework.
Research gaps within
IPO framework Specific research questions
Input
What attributes should 1. What types of advice (e.g.,
the advice have, and information vs. recommendation
how should it be given vs. instruction) and message
to increase its likeliness content are most effective
of implementation when provided to family firm
and its efficacy for the decision makers, and how can
family business? their preferences be explained
theoretically?
2. Why do family firm decision
makers prefer certain advice
attributes but not others? Does
their preference depend on the
decision makers’ socioemotional
wealth considerations?
3. How do preferences for specific Moreover, much is at stake for
message features vary across
family firms depending on, for
example, the generation involved? be emotionally tied to the firm
What types of 4. Do family firm decision makers
advisors with which vary in their preference for
competencies do family certain advisor attributes, and
business decision how can such heterogeneity be
makers trust the most? explained?
27
Unique family business
characteristics
Family firm decision makers pursue Advice response
idiosyncratic goals; those goals
might influence their preference
for specific advice attributes and
message features.
Family firm decision makers are
typically experts with regard
to their firm and industry; they
thus possess much higher levels
of expertise than the decision
makers of psychology samples.
family firm decision makers. As
such, they are more likely to
and motivated to take “the right
decision” than psychology study
participants.
Family firm decision makers
are typically much older and
much more experienced than
psychology study participants.
This could influence their
preferences.
Exemplary application of psychology
Relevant theories constructs to inform FB research
•• Use the advice attributes
theory identified by psychology
research—such as cost of
advice, message type, and
message features—to scrutinize
the preferences of family firm
decision makers
Construal level •• Use the advice response theory
theory and the construal level theory
that have been frequently applied
by psychology scholars to explain
family firm decision makers’
preferences
Resource-based
view (RBV)
Socioemotional
wealth
Agency theory •• Combine the advisor
characteristics studied frequently
in family firm research (e.g.,
role, professional background)
with the characteristics studied
frequently by psychology research
(e.g., frequency of interaction,
own experience with problem)
to obtain a more fine-grained
understanding on desired (or
undesired) advisor characteristics
(continued)
28
Table 7. (continued)
Research gaps within
IPO framework Specific research questions
5. What soft skills do family firm
advisors need for the family to
accept his or her advice?
6. How many and which types of
advisors do family firm decision
makers prefer to involve in their
decision making processes?
How do contingencies 7. How do preferences for specific
such as organizational types of advice depend on the
and family attributes emotional attachment of a
(i.e., level of decision maker?
knowledge, goals,
emotional attachment)
or cultural aspects
affect advice taking in
family firms?
8. How does the level of advice
taking of family firm decision
makers depend on cultural
aspects?
9. How can institutional theories
explain the varying success of
different types of family firm
advisors across the globe?
Unique family business Exemplary application of psychology
characteristics Relevant theories constructs to inform FB research
Family firm decision makers are Construal level
known to strive for long-term theory
trust-based relationships. This
could influence their preference
for/against specific advisors.
Knowledge
sharing
Resource-based
view (RBV)
Several family firms are known Appraisal theory •• Use insights from the psychology
to be “inward-looking” and to (of emotions) advising literature on how
avoid publicity. Such a culture culture shapes, for example, the
might affect their advice taking preference for advice seeking and
behavior. advice giving
Moreover, family firms in cultures Institutional
where failure is more tolerated theory
might be more open than those
in countries where failure is
stigmatized. Given the family’s
frequent desire to maintain a
positive image, these cross-
country differences are likely
more salient for such decision
makers than other decision
makers.
Socioemotional
wealth
(continued)
 Table 7. (continued)
Research gaps within
IPO framework Specific research questions
Process
Which factors 10. How does the individual family
influence the advice decision maker “weigh the
taking preferences advice,” and how does this
of individual family affect the family firm’s decision
members, and how making?
do they affect family
business decision
making?
11. How can we explain the
cognitive mechanisms that take
place throughout the advice
taking process?
12. How do the answers to the
above-mentioned questions
depend on the age, experience,
generation, leadership style, and
identity of the family members?
How do relational 13. How do family firm decision
aspects increase or makers handle advice provided
decrease the advice by different types of advisors
taking behavior of with different characteristics?
family business decision
makers?
14. How does, for instance, the
professional experience of the
advisor affect the family firm’s
perception of the quality of
advice?
15. With whom does the family
firm decision maker interact
throughout the advice taking
process?
29
Unique family business
characteristics Relevant theories
The advice taking behavior of next Agency theory
generation family firm leaders
might depend on how they have
been raised, what stories were
told about the business, and
whether the incumbent still has
an important role in the business
after succession.
Appraisal theory
(of emotions)
Sensemaking
Weight of advice
Family firm decision makers often JAS—Judge
value relationship ties more than advisor system
experience or skills, as succession
literature has shown. Such
preferences could also affect how
they handle advice provided by
different types of advisors.
In addition, the power constellation Knowledge
among the involved family sharing
members might affect their advice
taking and decision making.
Sensemaking
Exemplary application of psychology
constructs to inform FB research
•• Introduce “intermediary”
constructs and variables such as
weight of advice to the family
business context in order to
better understand the decision
making process in such firms
•• Conduct nuanced studies on the
effect of emotions in the decision
making process and use theories
from psychology to explain the
processes
•• Use the judge-advisor system
as a helpful framework to
systematically grasp the relations
of the actors in the advice giving
and advice taking process.
(continued)
30
Table 7. (continued)

Research gaps within Unique family business Exemplary application of psychology

IPO framework Specific research questions characteristics Relevant theories constructs to inform FB research
Which family and 16. How does the decision making Most psychology literature has Appraisal theory •• Understanding such processes in
business internal and process depend on family firm focused on decision making in detail requires studies that cross
external contingency or task characteristics? rather private settings where levels. To answer this research
factors affect advice individuals need to take decisions gap, organizational- and group-
taking and ultimately for themselves. However, level constructs and findings from
organizational-level decision making and advice taking family business research might
decision making behavior could strongly differ be combined with the individual-
behavior? if the advice is given not in a level perspective of psychology
private but in business setting research
and if more than one individual—
maybe with diverging goals and
backgrounds, as in family firms—
is involved.
17. How do decision making Corporate
preferences and advice taking governance
priorities change over the
over the lifecycle of the family
business?
18. How do organizational routines Socioemotional
and procedures affect individual wealth
advice taking in family firms?
Stakeholder and
stewardship
theories
Output
How does advice 19. How does advice taking affect Most psychology studies have Corporate •• Introduce concepts such as
taking affect individual the accuracy of decision making focused on rather “simple” governance emotional support into family
decision making in family firms? tasks, such as answering firm advising research as an
accuracy and ultimately questions regarding history. alternative outcome
family business The advice taking behavior
economic outcomes? and the implications of advice
taking might be different if the
application is within a more
complex setting, such as family
firms with multidimensional
consequences (economic/non-
economic, family, firm)

(continued)
 Table 7. (continued)
Research gaps within
IPO framework Specific research questions
20. How can family firms improve
their advice taking and decision
making accuracy by considering
advice?
21. How does decision accuracy
based on advice eventually affect
organizational performance?
How does advice taking 22. How does advice taking
and decision making or rejecting affect various
among family members dimensions of family
influence family functionality?
outcomes?
23. Under what conditions are
family relationships strengthened
during advising processes?
24. What types of advisors
are particularly effective
in strengthening these
relationships?
31
Unique family business
characteristics
Family firm decision making
typically affects not only the
firm and the decision maker but
potentially (at least indirectly)
also family members. Especially
in cases that an advisor is only
trusted by few family members or
if the level of advice discounting
varies among family members,
this might have an effect on family
relations.
Exemplary application of psychology
Relevant theories constructs to inform FB research
Performance •• Study the amount of advice taking
theories or deviation from the initial
considerations of the decision
maker rather than the more
distant proxies of advice taking
(e.g., firm performance) that have
been investigated thus far
Emotional
support
Corporate •• Use of individual psychology
governance theories, such relationship
conflict theories, to explain
how advice taking affects family
outcomes
Relationship •• Build on the advice characteristics
conflict theories and advisor characteristics
identified by psychology research
to gain a more fine-grained
understanding of the relationships
Stewardship
theory
(continued)
32
Table 7. (continued)
Research gaps within
IPO framework Specific research questions
How does advice taking 25. How does advice taking or
affect the family rejecting affect the relationship
business’ noneconomic between the advisor and the
outcomes? decision maker?
26. What consequences do
inaccurate advice giving and a
lack of disclosure of interests
have in the family firm context?
27. How is trust building between
the advisor and decision maker
affected by prior advising?
Unique family business Exemplary application of psychology
characteristics Relevant theories constructs to inform FB research
In psychology studies, the advisor Corporate •• Investigate advisor characteristics,
is mostly an a priori unknown governance such as conflict of interests and
individual without any further the disclosure thereof, to study
relationship with the decision his or her effectiveness in advice
maker after the advising process. giving
This is different in family firms,
where the decision makers
often have long-standing
relationships with the advisor
before the advising takes place
and—often—continue a private
and professional relationship
afterward. As such, the decision
maker–advisor relationship
deserves much more attention in
family business settings.
Disclosure of
interests
Stakeholder
theory
Stewardship
theory
Strike et al.
Figure 1. Focus of extant family business literature on advising.
individual-level outcomes. Understanding the role of
these attributes in the family firm advising context is
one of the precursors to developing and testing theo-
ries of when family firms are willing to seek for and
take advice. While effective advice giving can improve
family firms’ performance (e.g., García-Ramos &
García-Olalla, 2011; Gordini, 2012; Naldi et al.,
2015), ineffective advice giving might lead to the
rejection of the advice or the advisor and even the
decision maker’s unwillingness to request and accept
advice in the future. Advice (or advisor) rejection is
not only financially costly to the family firm but it also
detracts managerial attention from firm-level strategic
issues (Benito-Hernández et al., 2014). Thus, it is
important for family business research to increase its
understanding of how input aspects, such as the advice
itself (Research Gap 1), attributes of the advisor
(Research Gap 2), or contingency factors (Research
33
Gap 3), affect family business advice taking outcomes
on an individual, dyad/family, and organizational
level.
Research Gap 1: What attributes should the advice
have, and how should it be given in order to increase
its likeliness of implementation and its efficacy for
the family business?
Psychology research distinguishes among informa-
tion, recommendation, and instruction (Gino et al.,
2012). Existing experimental studies reveal that student
respondents prefer advice in the form of recommenda-
tions for an option and information on the options but
not in the form of pure instruction (Dalal & Bonaccio,
2010). Drawing from these insights, family business
scholars could explore which advice attributes are
viewed as particularly valuable by family firm decision
34
Figure 2. Focus of extant psychology literature on advising.
makers—who are typically more experienced than stu-
dent participants and who follow different goals than
decision makers in firms with different ownership struc-
ture; for example, they show a strong desire to retain
control (Berrone, Cruz, & Gomez-Mejia, 2012).
Moreover, depending on the task seriousness, “much
[more] is at stake” for those such individuals (compared
with student respondents and decision makers in firms
with other ownership structures), as family wealth is
often tied to the firm’s performance (Anderson, Mansi,
& Reeb, 2003).
As such, one might assume that family firm decision
makers value recommendations more than instructions
and pay particular attention to message content and
information depth. Family firm researchers should thus
test the effectiveness of advice that varies in cost (Gino,
2008), type (Gino et al., 2012), quality (Yaniv &
Kleinberger, 2000), and features (e.g., politeness;
MacGeorge et al., 2016), when it is provided to family
Family Business Review 00(0)
firm decision makers. To develop a comprehensive
model of attributes preferred by family firm decision
makers, advice response theory from psychology (Feng
& Feng, 2013; MacGeorge et al., 2016; see Table 2)
might provide a useful framework. However, the prefer-
ence for certain advice features might not only differ
between family firm decision makers and student
respondents; there might also be considerable variation
among the groups of family firms depending on, for
instance, the generation active in the firm or the family
members’ varying levels of socioemotional wealth
(Berrone et al., 2012; Sonfield & Lussier, 2012). To the-
oretically understand the preferences of (different) fam-
ily firms, construal level theory (Danziger et al., 2012)
might be useful, as one could argue that members of first
and later generations perceive their firms differently. In
sum, key questions related to Research Gap 1 center on
what types of advice and message content are most
effective for family firm decision makers (Research
Strike et al.
Question 1), why family firm decision makers prefer cer-
tain advice attributes (Research Question 2), and how
those preferences vary across family firms (Research
Question 3).
Research Gap 2: What types of advisors with which
competencies do family business decision makers
trust the most?
In addition to advice attributes, advisor attributes
deserve more attention among family firm researchers.
While prior family firm research has focused on advisor
attributes such as their formal versus informal status
(Naldi et al., 2015) and their professional backgrounds
(e.g., Barbera & Hasso, 2013; Strike, 2013), psychology
research has revealed additional important advisor attri-
butes, such as expertise, trustworthiness, confidence,
similarity (Feng & Feng, 2013), seniority (Tzioti et al.,
2014), and motives (van Swol, 2009), which all affect
the advice taking. Given that family firm decision mak-
ers are typically considered to be reluctant to take advice
(Michel & Kammerlander, 2015; Naldi et al., 2015),
family firm researchers and practitioners should aim to
understand which advisor attributes are preferred by
those individuals and why.
However, given that family firm decision makers are
mostly older and more experienced than the participants
in psychology studies, who are typically undergraduate
students, insights from psychology on advisor prefer-
ences might not be directly transferrable to the family
firm setting. Since family firm decision makers value
long-term and trust-based relationships (Berrone et al.,
2012; Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2005), it would be
interesting to study whether and under which conditions
family firm decision makers place more emphasis on the
advisor’s expertise (e.g., Bonaccio & Dalal, 2010) ver-
sus the level of mutual trust (e.g., Perry et al., 2015;
Waisner, 2012). Combining theoretical insights from the
resource-based view and agency theory (Michel &
Kammerlander, 2015) with findings from construal level
theory (Danziger et al., 2012) and knowledge sharing
(Su & Dou, 2013) might be helpful for predicting which
advisor attributes increase family firm decision makers’
willingness to take advice.
Moreover, it would be thought provoking to study
which advisor attributes are particularly helpful to
achieve positive outcomes at both the individual (e.g.,
satisfaction and confidence) and firm (e.g., performance)
35
levels. Psychology studies based on construal level the-
ory have shown that the level of idealism versus pragma-
tism in advice giving depends on various factors, such as
the advisor’s distance from the problem (Danziger et al.,
2012). Extending this work in the family firm area, future
studies might aim to identify which advisors are able to
best understand both the rational and emotional side of
the family business and which advisors are thus able to
provide targeted advice. For example, in a situation such
as succession, where a strategic-oriented perspective is
required (Salvato & Corbetta, 2013), outside advisors
might be particularly valuable. Moreover, building on
Effron and Miller’s (2015) psychology work, which
shows that advisors who have personally gone through a
similar, challenging situation in the past benefit from
increased legitimacy, research may also study whether
former family firm owner-managers are particularly
effective or ineffective advisors. In sum, future research
might thus focus on questions such as whether family
firm decision makers vary in their preference for certain
advisor attributes and, if so, why (Research Question 4),
what soft skills are required for a family business advisor
(Research Question 5), and how many and which types of
advisors that family firms prefer (Research Question 6).
Research Gap 3: How do contingencies such as
organizational and family attributes (i.e., level of
knowledge, goals, emotional attachment) or cultural
aspects affect advice taking in family firms?
The effectiveness of advice giving for family firm
decision makers might also strongly depend on contin-
gency factors—related to the family, firm, or (cultural)
context. Psychology research has continuously empha-
sized the role of emotions (e.g., fear, joy) in decision
making (de Hooge et al., 2014), which might differ
between first and later generations (Ling & Kellermanns,
2010) as well as between “business-first” and “family-
first” (Basco & Pérez Rodríguez, 2009) family firms.
Using such findings from psychology research, the fam-
ily firm advising literature might aim to understand
under which contingency factors family firm decision
makers are more or less willing to accept advice (or
advisors) with specific attributes. Appraisal theory
(Gino et al., 2012) constitutes a useful framework to
systematically study how variance in family firms’ focus
on emotions causes heterogeneous advice and advisor
preferences in family firms.
36
In addition to firm- and family-level contingencies,
psychology research has also highlighted the important
role of cultural differences in explaining the varying
effectiveness of advice giving (Camachoa et al., 2014).
For instance, individuals from the Russian culture are
much more open to unsolicited advice than American
study participants (Chentsova-Dutton & Vaughn, 2012).
Such insights, adapted to the family firm context and
their specific structures and goals, might be able to
explain why successful family firm advising practices
might not be easily transferred from one geographical
context to another. For instance, in cultures in which
failure is tolerated or even perceived positively as part of
an entrepreneurial learning process, family firm deci-
sion makers—who are often rather concerned about
their reputation (Berrone et al., 2012)—might exhibit
different advice seeking and taking behaviors from those
in cultures in which failure is stigmatized. Combining
institutional theory with prior psychology findings pro-
vides a strong theoretical and empirical basis to investi-
gate how cultural differences affect advice giving and
taking in family firms. Thus, it would be particularly
stimulating to gain further insights on, for example, how
emotional attachment affects preferences for a certain
type of advice (Research Question 7), how cultural
aspects affect family business advice taking (Research
Question 8), and how institutional theories might help
explain the varying success of advisors (Research
Question 9).
Process Aspects of Family Business Members’ Decision
Making. One of the most striking findings of our litera-
ture review is the lack of family firm studies on advising
processes (instead of relations between input and
output)—a topic well covered by psychology, mostly on
the individual and dyad (advisor-advisee) levels. To
build up precise and generalizable theory on family firm
advising, knowledge on the process at all levels is, how-
ever, required. Given the importance of knowledge on
advising processes—since only a nuanced understand-
ing thereof will provide valuable insights into the emo-
tional and cognitive processes taking place among
family firm decision makers when considering advice—
we identify important research gaps with regard to this
process. In particular, we aim to increase our under-
standing of how individual judgements (Research Gap
4), relational factors between advisor and decision
maker (Research Gap 5), and organizational advice
Family Business Review 00(0)
evaluation influenced by contingent factors (Research
Gap 6) affect decisional outcomes among all three levels
of analysis.
Research Gap 4: Which factors influence the advice
taking preferences of individual family members,
and how do they affect family business decision
making?
To explore the individual-level cognitive mecha-
nisms while taking advice, the psychology literature
has developed interesting and insightful concepts to
capture and measure what decision makers actually
“do” with the advice that they have received. Instead of
the binary approach that is still prevalent in family firm
research (i.e., advice is either followed or not followed),
psychology scholars distinguish between different lev-
els of accepting or rejecting advice. Acknowledging the
continuous nature of the advice taking process, psy-
chology researchers find that decision makers rarely
fully accept or reject advice; rather, they tend to “dis-
count” advice provided by others (Schrah et al., 2006).
Consequently, their final decision is often a combina-
tion of decision makers’ initial own “gut feeling” and
the (discounted) advice. To capture the influence of a
piece of advice on a decision maker, psychology schol-
ars have developed the concept of WOA, which is a
quantifiable, measurable construct and thus an impor-
tant element of any empirical work on psychology
advising. WOA is defined as
Final estimate − initial estimate
WOA =
Advice − initial estimate
In the case of family firm succession, an incumbent
might think about handing over the business to his or her
successor in 15 years. In such a case, the initial estimate
is “15.” If the advisor suggests an earlier succession,
already taking place within 5 years, this number (5) is
called the “advice.” Having received such advice, the
incumbent “weighs” the advice, based on his or her
judgment of the advisor’s expertise and trustworthiness.
He or she might ultimately decide for an “in-between”
solution of, for instance, handing over the business in 9
years (i.e., “final estimate”). In such a case, the WOA
would be calculated as (9 − 15)/(5 − 15) = 0.6. If an
incumbent rejects the advice (i.e., decides for succession
in 15 years), the WOA is 0, whereas if the advice is
Strike et al.
accepted (i.e., decision for succession in 5 years), WOA
equals 1. Hence, the WOA reflects the impact of the
advice on the ultimate decision. Prior work shows, for
instance, that the WOA is generally larger for close ver-
sus distant advice (e.g., in the above-mentioned exam-
ple, a suggestion of 13 years is called close advice,
whereas 2 years would be perceived as distant advice;
Yaniv & Milyavsky, 2007) and smaller if the decision
maker perceives his or her power to be high (Tost et al.,
2012).
The WOA might be a useful tool for family firm
researchers seeking to generate a more nuanced under-
standing of the individual-level advice taking processes
in family firms and aiming to understand individual
decision preferences in such firms (e.g., Reay et al.,
2013). One could assume that while many of the WOA
findings of psychology scholars may also hold true in
the family firm context, the specific socioemotional
aspects in those firms (e.g., Berrone et al., 2012) might
add an additional layer of complexity. In particular, it
might be interesting to use the concept of WOA to study
how family firm decision makers handle what advice
they receive; under which conditions they accept, dis-
count, or reject the advice; and how these relationships
depend on individual-level characteristics, such as goals,
leadership style, and personality. However, family-level
variables, such as the power constellation and conflicts
among family members, might also affect advice taking
preferences. Scholars might apply the concept of WOA
not only to decisions regarding succession timing as
mentioned in the example above but also to sales price
considerations, investment decisions, compensation-
related issues, and other strategic questions. In sum, we
particularly strive for a better understanding of how the
individual family decision maker “weighs” the advice
(Research Question 10), how we can explain family firm
decision makers’ cognitive mechanisms when taking
advice (Research Question 11), and how factors such as
the age, experience, generation, and leadership style of
the family firm decision makers influence their advice
taking preferences (Research Question 12).
Research Gap 5: How do relational aspects increase
or decrease the advice taking behavior of family busi-
ness decision makers?
Advising is a process that not only includes one indi-
vidual (the decision maker) but at least a second actor
37
(the advisor). As such, relational aspects, such as mutual
trust and acknowledgment of the other individuals’ com-
petencies, play a major role in the advice giving and
advice taking processes. Psychology research, for
instance, has shown that decision makers who are
knowledgeable about the advisor’s own learning tech-
niques surprisingly discount the advice to a higher
degree (Benjamin & Budescu, 2015), whereas disclo-
sure of conflicting interests by the advisor counterintui-
tively increases decision makers’ advice taking (Sah
et al., 2013), as decision makers perceive high social
pressure for compliance in such cases.
In the family firm context, such relational aspects are
likely to be even more important, given the emphasis
that family firm members place on trusted relationships
with family and firm internal and external stakeholders
(Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2005). Moreover, the rela-
tionships that need to be considered in a family firm
advising context are more complex than those in situa-
tions typically explored by psychology researchers:
while psychology studies typically concern dyadic rela-
tionships between one (or few) advisors and one deci-
sion maker, in family firms, advising other stakeholders
such as other influential family members needs to be
considered (Michel & Kammerlander, 2015).
Adapting and extending JAS from psychology
(Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006; Sniezek and Buckley, 1995)
to family firm advising provides a thorough theoretical,
systemic framework to study these relationships, their
antecedents, and their consequences. For instance, JAS
might be used to explain why certain family firm deci-
sion makers prefer advisors with certain competencies
and backgrounds. JAS differentiates between two sys-
tems, namely, the system of the advisor and the system
of the judge (decision maker), that overlap during the
advising process. As such, it might also help explain and
predict the points in the process during which the advi-
sor is able to provide socioemotional support (Bonaccio
& Dalal, 2006) and stimulate sensemaking among fam-
ily firm decision makers (Strike & Rerup, 2016). JAS
might be particularly useful when striving to understand
the interactions among various advisors (e.g., formal
and informal advisors) as well as decision makers (e.g.,
incumbent and successor), their conflicts, their sense-
making, and ultimately the decision making processes in
the family firm. In sum, future research might shed light
on how family firm decision makers handle advice pro-
vided by different types of advisors (Research Question
38
13), how aspects such as the professional experience of
the advisor affect the perceived quality of the advice
(Research Question 14), and with whom the decision
maker interacts while taking advice (Research Question
15).
Research Gap 6: Which family and business internal
and external contingency factors affect advice taking
and ultimately organizational-level decision making
behavior?
Similar to the input factors, the advice taking and
decision making processes at the individual, family, and
firm levels likely depend on a series of contingency fac-
tors. For instance, Schrah et al. (2006) reveal that the
task itself, namely, its complexity, affects the advice tak-
ing process; when tasks are complex, decision makers
are more likely to accept advice. Moreover, temporal
aspects play an important role. Decision makers with the
opportunity to form their own opinion before advice is
provided are more likely to accept advice (Rader et al.,
2015).
In contrast to the time-constrained, isolated advising
and decision making situation in psychology experi-
mental studies, family firm advising and decision mak-
ing occurs in a much more complex setting. Thus, we
would expect an even larger number of individual-, fam-
ily-, firm-, industry-, and country-level contingencies to
shape the processes, which thus deserve more scholarly
attention. Such factors include individual- and family-
level goals (Berrone et al., 2012), educational and pro-
fessional backgrounds (Sorenson and Milbrandt, 2015;
Su & Dou, 2013), generations involved (Alderson,
2009), family rules (Distelberg & Castanos, 2012), trust
(Perry et al., 2015), and the family’s and firm’s history
(Perry et al., 2015). In addition, specific industry charac-
teristics and cultural aspects might affect advice taking
at the individual level and, ultimately, decision making
at the family and organizational levels. To theoretically
understand heterogeneity within family firms’ advising
processes on multiple levels, appraisal theory of emo-
tions may provide valuable insights into how family-
specific contingencies emotionally affect the advice
taking and decision making process at the organizational
level (e.g., de Hooge et al., 2014). Given the increased
interest of family business researchers in emotions
(Astrachan & Jaskiewicz, 2008; Shepherd, 2016), repli-
cating and extending extant psychology studies on emo-
tions in advising processes in the family firm context
Family Business Review 00(0)
might provide valuable insights for both researchers and
practitioners. In particular, we need a better understand-
ing of how family firm or task-specific characteristics
affect individual advice taking (Research Question 16),
how decision making priorities might change over the
lifecycle of the family firm (Research Question 17), and
how organizational routines and procedures affect indi-
vidual advice taking in family firms (Research Question
18).
Output Aspects of Family and Business Advice Taking. Most
output-related family business studies focus on the orga-
nizational level of analysis by exploring the economic
consequences of advising, such as profitability, growth,
and liquidity (Holt, Pearson, Carr, & Barnett, 2016), and
noneconomic consequences, such as board tasks (Bam-
mens et al., 2001), board characteristics (García-Ramos
& García-Olalla, 2011), and board independence (Zat-
toni et al., 2015). With the exception of Salvato and Cor-
betta (2013), family business advising research has
neglected to study the individual-level consequences of
advising. This gap is surprising, as individual-level
advice taking remains the micro-foundation for group-
related strategic discussions within family firm and ulti-
mately firm-level decision making. Psychology advising
research might serve as a blueprint for future family firm
research in this regard; psychology researchers have
empirically studied not only a broad range of individual-
level outcomes, such as decision quality (Feng & Feng,
2013; Gino, 2008), but also relational aspects, such as
the trust of the advisee in the advisor (Reich & Tormala,
2013). In the following, we outline three outcome-
related research gaps relevant for future family firm
advising that might be inspired by psychology work in
seeking answers with respect to how advice taking
affects decision making accuracy among family firm
decision makers (Research Gap 7), how the advice tak-
ing of family members influences family-related out-
comes (Research Gap 8), and how advice taking affects
firms’ noneconomic outcomes (Research Gap 9).
Research Gap 7: How does advice taking affect
individual decision making accuracy and ultimately
family business economic outcomes?
To date, we still lack a clear understanding of how
advising can increase decision making accuracy at the
individual level and, ultimately, how it can positively
affect family business economic outcomes. Going
Strike et al.
forward, such knowledge is required because empirical
family firm studies investigating organizational perfor-
mance outcomes directly, instead of considering indi-
vidual-level decision making as intermediate step, might
be biased by unobserved firm- or industry-level factors
that are unrelated to the advising process per se.
Psychology research has dedicated much effort to theo-
rizing and measuring decision making accuracy. For
instance, prior studies show that advice taking generally
increases decision accuracy (Yaniv, 2004), and this
effect is even strengthened when decision makers con-
tinuously revise their own opinions based on the advice
that they receive (Yaniv & Milyavsky, 2007).
Measuring “advice accuracy” in a family firm con-
text is more challenging than doing so in experimental
settings, given the often multifaceted nature of the deci-
sions and the interplay of both rational and emotional, as
well as short-term and long-term, factors. Nevertheless,
accepting this scholarly challenge and finding ways to
measure and study the quality of advice—and ultimately
the quality of decisions when advice is accepted—are
also promising for the family firm field. Answering
questions related to the quality of advice taking, the
accuracy of decision making, and ultimately the effects
on firm performance bridges the disciplines of psychol-
ogy, finance, and family firm management, and it will
allow us not only to understand important cognitive and
strategic processes within the organization but also to
provide valuable recommendations to family firm prac-
titioners. To fill such research voids, family firm
researchers might build on the concept of socioemo-
tional support (Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006), which
acknowledges that advisors might provide family firm
decision makers with not only fact-based but also social
and emotional support.
Moreover, the direction from individual- to organiza-
tional-level decision making might not be purely
straightforward in family firms, given the involvement
of other family members and firm-internal and firm-
external stakeholders who might participate in decision
making after the advising process has concluded. The
question regarding what happens to group decision mak-
ing if one group member has received advice before-
hand remains largely unstudied not only in family firm
but also in psychology research. Thus, future research
might seek answers to questions such as how does advice
taking affect the accuracy of family firm decision mak-
ing (Research Question 19), how can family firms
improve their decision making accuracy (Research
39
Question 20), and how does decision accuracy based on
advice taking eventually affect organizational perfor-
mance (Research Question 21).
Research Gap 8: How does advice taking and deci-
sion making among family members influence fam-
ily outcomes?
A further important but thus far understudied dimen-
sion of outcome variables is the family level (e.g.,
Distelberg & Castanos, 2012; Reay et al., 2013). As with
any social interaction, advice accepting (or rejecting)
affects not only the organizational level but also the
family level, particularly with regard to noneconomic
outcomes. For instance, family members might disagree
on a specific advisor or piece of advice, and thus, the
outcome of the individual-level advice taking process
can also affect relationships among family members.
The reliance on or rejection of a specific advisor by one
or more family members might also affect the trust lev-
els among the family and its confidants.
While psychology research has only marginally stud-
ied outcomes at the dyad or group level, it still provides
insightful findings that might help sharpen further
research agendas. For instance, prior studies show that
decision makers vary tremendously in their capabilities
to differentiate between “good” and “bad” advice (Gino
et al., 2012). To advance the understanding of family
firm advising, it would be interesting to combine psy-
chology findings regarding advising with relationship
conflict theories (Gino et al., 2012) and theories and
insights from family science (e.g., Olson & Gorall,
2003). In sum, future research could address questions
such as how does advice taking or rejecting affect family
functionality (Research Question 22), under what condi-
tions are family relationships strengthened during advis-
ing (Research Question 23) and what types of advisors
are particularly effective in strengthening these rela-
tionships (Research Question 24).
Research Gap 9: How does advice taking affect the
family business’s noneconomic outcomes?
Noneconomic outcomes deserve more scholarly
attention not only at the family level but also at the orga-
nizational level. Given their nonfinancial goals (Berrone
et al., 2012), family firms offer a unique setting to study
the organizational-level noneconomic outcomes of
advice taking.
40
Psychology research has revealed that advice taking
has a substantial effect on important (individual-level)
noneconomic outcomes, such as increased competence
(Brooks et al., 2015), and confidence (Budescu & Yu,
2007). As such, one might speculate that advice taking
also affects competences aggregated at the organiza-
tional level or even the way in which organizational
members and outsiders perceive the company (family
firm identity and family firm image). While psychology
research has mostly studied advising situations in which
the advisor and decision maker meet only once (i.e., for
the advising session), family firm members and advisors
often enjoy a trusted and long-term relationship (Michel
& Kammerlander, 2015). As such, studying the effect
of—either helpful or harmful—advice giving to family
members on the relationship between members of the
family firm and the advisor is of utmost relevance for
our understanding of family firm advising.
Future research endeavors could build on insights on
relationship conflicts, from research on the family busi-
ness (Kellermanns & Eddleston, 2006), family therapy
(Cole & Johnson, 2012), and individual psychology
(Gino et al., 2012), to shed light on the noneconomic
consequences of the advice taking process. The con-
struct of disclosure of interests from psychology
(Benjamin & Budescu, 2015; Sah et al., 2013) could
help provide a more profound understanding of how
advisors’ disclosure of their own interest increases
advice taking. Such findings might be combined with,
for example, stewardship theory (e.g., Gordini, 2012;
Hiebl, 2013) to further explain how advisors on a long-
term basis serve family firms to their best. Important
questions concerning this research gap are thus how
does advice taking or rejecting affect the relationship
between the advisor and the decision maker (Research
Question 25), what consequences do inaccurate advice
giving and a lack of disclosure of interests have in the
family firm context (Research Question 26), and how is
trust building between the advisor and decision maker
affected by prior advising (Research Question 27).
Contributions and Conclusion
With our review, we provide a fourfold contribution in
bridging two disciplines and bringing novel insights to
family business research. First, we address the black box
within family business advising: the internal structures
that are not well understood. To advance the field, addi-
tional theoretical constructs are required. However,
Family Business Review 00(0)
these theoretical constructs are often loosely specified or
unmeasured, creating a black box filled with vague,
untested theories (Lawrence, 1997).
Second, in unlocking this black box, we introduce
new constructs and theories to the family business litera-
ture. Scholars from psychology have dedicated signifi-
cant effort over the past four decades to understanding
the advising processes and developing process variables.
In research on family business advising, advice has been
treated as a binary variable that is either taken or rejected.
Psychology introduces a gradation or continuum, in
addition to the processes in which advice is given, the
message factors, and the weighting of the advice. We
elaborate on constructs such as the WOA (Gino &
Moore, 2007) and theories such as JAS (Bonaccio &
Dalal, 2006) in detail while focusing on how they can
inform the family business literature and providing
explicit examples regarding how they can contribute to
studies in the family business context.
Third, we summarize and integrate our findings in an
overarching IPO framework, emphasizing the impor-
tance of contextual factors and interaction variables.
The field of family business advising has primarily
focused on the inputs and outputs (e.g., Naldi et al.,
2015), which is not unusual for a nascent research field.
As the field continues to advance, research questions
require more than a predictor and an outcome.
Psychology, in contrast, has studied processes in more
detail. We advance family business literature by inte-
grating the findings of the two fields into a comprehen-
sive (IPO) framework. Hence, our review identifies a
multitude of IPO variables across individual–dyad/
group–organizational levels of analysis. We identify and
categorize these variables across both the family busi-
ness and psychology advising literature and provide a
concise overview of the similarities and differences of
constructs used in both literature streams. We utilize the
variables to identify research gaps and develop future
research opportunities, and in this way, we identify the
need for mediators/moderators (which we label contex-
tual factors/interaction variables) to aid in explaining the
links between inputs and outputs.
Fourth, this review reveals that the current literature
on family firm advising heavily relies on the family/firm
level of analysis but has devoted little attention to the
individual level. In turn, psychology research focuses on
the individual and dyad level of analysis. The theories
utilized by family business research are also largely at
the firm level (e.g., corporate governance), while
Strike et al.
psychology research relies on individual-level theories
(e.g., construal-level theory). We identify and discuss
these differences in levels of analysis and the resulting
research gaps, proposing thought-provoking multilevel
research questions with theoretical bases as avenues for
both family business and psychology researchers inter-
ested in advising.
In summary, our review demonstrates that while aca-
demic research on family firm advising is rapidly gain-
ing momentum, the process, as Strike (2012) notes,
remains shielded. In establishing its footing over the
past 5 years, academic research on family firm advising
has focused on input and predominantly organization-
level output variables, resulting in a black box regarding
the advising process itself. To understand the process of
advising, Strike (2012) calls for the development of an
initial core set of variables. To advance the field and
identify not only these core variables but also the mech-
anisms leading from input to output, we have shown that
the psychology literature offers the utmost help:
Researchers from this discipline have long studied how
advice is given, judged, and weighted and have devel-
oped constructs and frameworks across alternate levels
of analysis that provide exciting and fruitful opportuni-
ties for future scholarly research on family firm
advising.
Acknowledgments
We thank Jurise Athena Oliveros for her research assistance
while developing this article. Moreover, we are grateful to the
four guest editors of this special issue Allison W. Pearson,
Daniel Holt, Tyge Payne, and Pramodita Sharma as well as
two anonymous reviewers who all provided excellent guid-
ance and challenged us to develop this article further.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/black-box.
html
2. We selected the 2011 to 2017 period to capture the extant
41
literature on family business advising since Strike’s
(2012) review.
3. We used the following search terms that referred to fam-
ily firms: family business, family firm, family enterprise,
family influence, family control, family owner, family
owned, family managed, family member, founder, gen-
eration, private, and closely held. The search terms used
to capture advice were advice, advise, advisor, adviser,
advising, counsel, therapy, professional expert, mediate,
consult, and mentor.
4. JCR is recognized as a leading source of citation report-
ing that “offers a systematic, objective means to critically
evaluate the world’s leading journals, with quantifiable,
statistical information based on citation data. By com-
piling articles’ cited references, JCR helps to measure
research influence and impact at the journal and category
levels, and shows the relationship between citing and
cited journals.” http://thomsonreuters.com/en/products-
services/scholarly-scientific-research/research-manage-
ment-and-evaluation/journal-citation-reports.html
5. The authors conducted a co-citation analysis for the
two literature streams and found no substantial overlap
between the two disciplines. Details on the co-citation
analysis may be requested from the authors.
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Author Biographies
Vanessa M. Strike is the CIBC professor in Applied Business
Family Studies and the Academic Director of the Business
Families Centre at the Sauder School of Business, University of
British Columbia. She received her PhD from the Ivey Business
School, Western University. Her research focuses on gover-
nance, sensemaking, and advising in family firms. Her articles
have been published, amongst others, in Academy of Management
Journal, Journal of Management Studies, and Entrepreneurship
Theory & Practice (E mail: vanessa.strike@sauder.ubc.ca).
Alexandra Michel, PhD, is postdoc researcher at the University
of Bern, Switzerland. She received her PhD in philosophy of
management at the Center for Family Business, University of
St. Gallen, Switzerland. Her research focusses on advisors in
family firms, family firm succession and private equity in fam-
ily firms (e-mail: alexandra.michel@iop.unibe.ch).
Nadine Kammerlander is professor of family business at
WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar,
Germany, where she also leads the institute of family business.
She received her PhD in management from the Otto Friedrich
University in Bamberg, Germany. Her research interests focus
on innovation, governance, and leadership in family firms and
her articles have been published, amongst others, in Academy
of Management Journal and Academy of Management Review
(e-mail: nadine.kammerlander@whu.edu).