Family vision and cognition: An illustration through forest owners’ harvesting decisions

•Family vision has an influence on decision-makers’ cognition.•It impacts the individual interpretation of environment that leads to different strategic outcomes.•Different economic and non-economic goals embraced by family vision lead to an overconsideration of elements in the cognitive process; this in turn modifies the framing of the decisions.•The family vision's emphasis on non-economic goals leads the family business owner to refer to parental practices in his decision-making.

Based on cognition as a key determinant in strategic decisions, this study employs a case study approach to explore how family vision – one of the main characteristics of family firms – affects the cognitive frames of reference of family decision-makers, especially business owners. This research suggests that family business owners pursue different family visions, which leads to different interpretations of environmental information during strategic decision-making by highlighting certain elements. I infer several propositions outlining that the degree of a family vision's emphasis on non-economic goals may modify the framing of decisions and endanger long-term orientation, therefore affecting strategic outcomes.