abstract
- © 2017 International Council for Small BusinessThe overarching intent of this manuscript is to heighten awareness to the concept of commitment escalation as it bears on a failing family business. Specifically, drawing on the concept of emotional ownership, together with self-justification arguments, we (1) identify factors considered to be most forceful in contributing to the presence of commitment escalation and thus, resistance to change in a failing family business, and (2) model these related factors in a form that can serve heuristically to stimulate future empirical research capable of testing for the construct validity of commitment escalation in a family business context.