Can family business loosen the grips of accounting, economics, and finance?

This is the first bibliometric study of the scholarly position of the family business field relative to other research fields. It employs three measures. First, it calculates balance of trade scores, as measures of relative influence. Entrepreneurship proves to have a positive balance of trade of 34.54% with family business, and the wider set of business journals have a positive balance of trade of 43.62% with entrepreneurship. Second, it calculates Simmelian ties, as measures of relational embeddedness in scholarly networks. Family business has very few strong ties, mainly with entrepreneurship, and it has no strong ties with the social sciences and humanities journals. Third, it calculates cross-citation scores by disciplines, as measures of the extent of cross-fertilization. Finance has the largest positive balance of trade with family business, at 67.5%. Accounting and economics also have positive balances of 28.6% and 38.8% respectively. However, FBR enjoys favorable balances, of 20.8%, 50%, and 61.1% respectively. Anthropology, family studies, geography, history, law, political science, psychology, and sociology have very few cross-citations. Family business journals show few signs of exploring older disciplines, other than accounting, economics and finance. The discussion raises reasons to be concerned and possible means for improvement.