From Tiny Cues to Business Transformation: Serendipity and Strategic Project Initiations in a Small Family Business

Insights on strategic project processes are needed in a contemporary society characterized by many disruptions and major transformations. In this paper, we supplement existing theoretical framings on the process of strategic project initiation by exploring the relationship between serendipity, i.e., surprising and valuable discoveries, and strategic project initiations. With a qualitative longitudinal embedded multi-case study approach, we study a family business entrepreneur who successfully transforms her small family business via strategic projects initiated by serendipity triggers. Our research provides four contributions related to the nature of the relationship between serendipity and strategic project initiation: (1) the causality between the two phenomena can go in both directions; (2) strategic project initiation can relate to Archimedean, Columbian, or Galilean serendipity; (3) a time lag between the serendipity trigger and the strategic project initiation may exist; and (4) business stakeholders and family stakeholders may be involved in serendipity triggers and strategic project initiations through different logics.