Learning the ropes of entrepreneurship: understanding internal corporate venturing for family firms from an entrepreneurial learning perspective

Future firm managers must build up entrepreneurial capabilities to ensure the long-term survivability of their firms. Anecdotal evidence as well as recent scholarly work, especially of family firms, indicate that internal corporate venturing might foster such capabilities; yet they also reveal substantial challenges associated with conducting such activities. Based on entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial learning, and family business research, we conceptually develop a framework on contingency factors under which internal corporate venturing activities of future (family-internal) firm managers foster—or impede—the development of entrepreneurial capabilities beyond traditional classroom education. In particular, we focus our discussion on attributes related to the (next gen) family manager, the family support, and the venture-family firm relationship. We also link our theorizing to existing theories on entrepreneurial learning. Our conceptual article contributes to our understanding of entrepreneurial learning, corporate entrepreneurship, and family business.