Agency, Stewardship, and the Universal-Family Firm: A Qualitative Historical Analysis

This article introduces the idea of a nonkinship-based Universal-family firm, an organizational form we developed based on interpreting historical writings in their socioeconomic context. We analyzed Luke's gospel with an eye toward drawing implications for the stewardship agency debate in the contemporary family business literature. Our article makes contributions at two important levels. In addition to introducing and developing theory about the Universal-family firms, we also contribute to the methodological toolkit of family business scholars by providing a template for using historical documents to challenge, enhance, and develop theory.