Family constitutions roles : two sides of the same coin? Reconciliation of Agency and Stewardship perspectives under the lens of Regulatory Focus Theory

This article reviews the existing literature, identifies what is understood as a family constitution and highlights the major roles that are associated with it. It appears that family constitutions have two major roles: avoiding conflicts and fostering a shared vision and commitment among the family members. Using agency (AT) and stewardship (ST) perspectives, the paper anchors each role into a well-established theoretical background in the family business field. However, the paper aims to go beyond these theoretical oppositions and reconcile them under the lens of Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT). Therefore, this paper provides an integrative theoretical framework to envision the way of crafting a family constitution without choosing between agency or stewardship theory to envision the role of the family constitution but instead acknowledges that both theoretical perspectives exist among family business.