Emotional regulation under pressure and tension: a cross-cultural inquiry into family business dynamics

Family businesses are emotionally dense systems in which ownership, kinship, identity, and managerial responsibility intersect. This overlap can support continuity and endurance, but it can also intensify anxiety, conflict, and role ambiguity, especially during succession, strategic change, and crisis. Drawing on Bowen’s family systems theory, this chapter argues that resilience in family firms should be understood not only as a resource-based or governance-based outcome, but also as a culturally mediated accomplishment of emotional regulation. It uses differentiation of self as a cross-level mechanism linking individual self-regulation, family interaction patterns, and organizational resilience. Focusing on Italy and South Korea as contrasting relational ecologies, the chapter shows that norms of closeness, hierarchy, emotional expression, and interdependence shape how pressure is experienced and regulated within business families. It concludes by outlining implications for research, advisory practice, and family business development.