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This article seeks to explore success factors for integrating non‐family chief financial officers (CFOs) in family firms. The integration of non‐family CFOs is of great importance to family firms, as the CFO position is often the first management position in family firms for which non‐family managers are recruited. Moreover, non‐family CFOs can bring in valuable know‐how to the family firm and reduce the family firm's financial risk.

The findings of this study are based on a qualitative field study in Austrian family firms. The views of non‐family CFOs, family managers, family board members, and non‐family CEOs were obtained through semi‐structured interviews.

Four larger success factors for non‐family CFOs and five for controlling families were derived. The most important factor for non‐family CFOs that emerged from the study was that CFOs should be appreciative of the peculiarities of family firms. For controlling families, the results suggest that it is advisable to provide the non‐family CFO enough space to effectively conduct their job as well as respect the CFO's views.

Both non‐family CFOs and controlling families may find the results presented in this article useful for creating a successful integration of non‐family CFOs in family firms. The success factors presented should be directly applicable for CFOs and controlling families.

This study is the first to investigate success factors for the integration of non‐family CFOs into family firms. Moreover, the results of this article may also be useful to the under‐researched field of non‐family managers in family firms in general.

This chapter explores how stress may manifest among non-family member employees, family member employees, and family firm founders in family firms during the startup phases of the organization. Understanding how stress arises in family firm startups has received limited attention to date. Notably absent in the research is the understanding of how stress arises in non-family member employees, which is important to understand as non-family member employees often outnumber family member employees. As stress increases for the non-family member employee due to issues such as role ambiguity and conflict, negative outcomes resultant from this stress may increase the chances of the employee exhibiting withdrawal behaviors. It is suggested these outcomes increase the stress of the family firm entrepreneur and family members by increasing interrole and interpersonal conflicts and negatively impacting decision-making. These effects on the family members may adversely impact the family firm’s chances of performing well, thus decreasing its chances for survival. Recommendations for future research are also made.

By combining structural contingency theory and socio-emotional wealth (SEW) theory, this study aims to identify the organizational determinants of collective performance-related pay (PRP) adoption by examining the interplay between a firm's ownership characteristics (i.e. family or non-family ownership) and other organizational characteristics.

This study adopts a quantitative approach, conducting empirical analyses of a longitudinal dataset of 4,222 Italian companies in the manufacturing sector for 2009–2017. The probability of adopting collective PRP schemes is estimated using the average marginal effects of the probit and linear probability models (LPMs).

The results show that family firms are less likely to adopt collective PRP schemes than non-family firms. Moreover, ceteris paribus, firm characteristics such as size, age and past (firm and labor) productivity are important determinants of firms' adoption of collective incentive pay; however, the significance and magnitude of their effects vary depending on a firm's ownership structure.

This analysis has two major elements of novelty. First, it increases the knowledge of how organizational contingencies differ in family versus non-family contexts regarding pay decisions. Second, it brings new theoretical perspectives to the pay debate by combining structural contingency theory and SEW theory, thus developing new and fertile theoretical grounds for advancing our understanding of the pay determinants. To the best of authors' knowledge, this is one of the first (if any) studies to shed light on collective PRP in family and non-family firms.

This study aims to examine how differences in the strength of interpersonal ties affect the social structure of organisational family and non-family relationships and their implications for work-related interactions.

This study used a quantitative approach. The hypotheses were tested using multi-group analysis in PLS-SEM as implemented in WarpPLS Version.

The results show that both family and non-family organisational members are inclined to ask from others whom they previously have given information, implying that reciprocity in work-related interactions in the workplace is present at the dyad level. Furthermore, the existing robust strength of ties among family employees facilitate a three-way relationship where each member is responsible for the quality of work-related interactions between other members. This means that triadic communication is only present within family networks. While, the absence of strong interpersonal ties within non-family network fuels the popularity effect, where non-family employees who are perceived to be knowledgeable tend to be approached by others for work-related information.

This study brings to the fore a nuanced perspective that complements our current understanding of the implications of social relationships within family and non-family employee groups on work-related interactions in the workplace. It provides clues on how family and non-family employees identify with the firm through their informal relational embeddedness towards work-related interactions within the organisation.

This study aims to use the gender socialization theory, critical mass theory and legitimacy theory to examine the female gender and environmental disclosure of family and non-family-controlled firms in India.

A sample size of 783 and 177 firm-year observations for family and non-family-controlled firms, respectively, between 2009 and 2020 uses descriptive statistics, a test of difference in means and panel regression with random effect assumptions for data interpretation.

The descriptive statistics show a significant mean difference between family-controlled firms and non-family-controlled firms in India. The first findings show that female chief executive officers (CEOs) and CEO duality have a positive and statistically significant association with environmental disclosure in a family-controlled firm but not in non-family-controlled firms in India. The second findings show that independent female directors have no significant association with environmental disclosure of family and non-family firms in India. The fourth findings with critical mass theory confirm the insignificant association of female directors on environmental disclosure of family and non-family firms in India. The results are robust to controlling firm-level variables.

Firms in the Indian context, through this study, assure stakeholders that family firms are better at improving stakeholder’s expectation of environmental accountability than non-family firms, especially where female CEOs are in charge.

This study adds the family perspective of the relationship between female CEOs and the environmental disclosure of listed firms in India. Also, female CEO duality and environmental disclosure add novelty to the research studies on gender and environmental disclosure.

Our paper seeks to further understand how family involvement in management influences firm growth.

Using a sample of small high-tech firms, we classify three different types of firms: family firms managed by family-CEOs, family firms managed by non-family CEOs and non-family firms.

Consistent with our expectations, we show that firms managed by family-CEOs have less firm growth in comparison with the other two groups. When the family firm is managed by non-family CEOs, the presence of another family member in management positions has a negative impact on firm growth. Finally, we found that founder-led family firms have better firm growth than descendant-led family firms.

Implications for the theory of family firms are discussed.

The value of the present study is to analyse in depth the heterogeneity of the family business trying to close the gap by exploring the effect of family involvement on small firm growth. Thus, we will find different behaviours of these family companies, depending on the family member’s presence in management positions.

To examine differences between family and non‐family SMEs in business goals, management practices and performance as they grow.

The study was based on 233 small non‐family and 362 small family firms. Medium firms comprised 305 family and 341 non‐family firms. Chi‐square tests and t‐tests were used to investigate the hypotheses formulated.

Small family firms were less likely to pursue growth compared with similar non‐family firms. Although medium family proprietors desired growth, their actual growth was lower than similar non‐family firms. Management practices were less formal in family firms and the gap between family and non‐family firms in this area widened with growth. Small family firms achieved greater profits than their non‐family counterparts, although this disparity disappeared at the medium level. Exports were low for both firms at the small level. However, medium family firms were less likely than similar non‐family firms to export.

Firms in the various size groups examined were independent of one another. A longitudinal investigation of family and non‐family firms as they progress through various growth stages should complement the findings.

The findings should assist policies makers, advisers, owners and management in designing policies and programs, providing advice and managing the two ownership types. Informal management procedures and the associated flexibility may enhance performance of small family firms but may impede their performance at larger sizes.

The paper demonstrates that the relationship between goals, strategies and performance varies between family and non‐family firms and the variations change with firm size.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of firm size on performance (measured as profits, growth, efficiency and liquidity) differences between family and non‐family small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).

The samples of 441 family and 473 non‐family firms were divided into four size groups and performance differences analysed for each size group using MANOVA.

The findings indicate that family SMEs perform at least as well as non‐family SMEs. Although the two types of firms shared several similar performance characteristics at the small level, certain differences were evident. Performance differences between family and non‐family SMEs became prominent at the critical growth phase (20‐49 employees), reached an optimum at 50‐99 employees and narrowed again thereafter. For family firms, the benefits of higher gross margins and efficient use of assets began to wane after 100 plus employees but the disadvantages of lower employee performance continued.

The study could be improved by a longitudinal examination of the same firms across various growth stages. Further, the findings may be industry‐specific and not generally applicable.

The findings show that greater resources do not necessary lead to better performance and that non‐family firms could benefit from more efficient use of resources. The findings also confirm that the benefits of the informal system are not sustainable at larger firm sizes and that larger family firms would benefit from improved management of employee performance.

The pattern of performance differences observed between family and non‐family SMEs is unique to the paper. The paper shows that differences in performance between the two types of firms noted in the literature do no hold at all firm sizes.

Several studies of family firm failures have pointed to non-family members in leading positions as a reason. However, non-family members have often played a key role in family-firm longevity, while non-family executives’ involvement in family firms is increasing. These non-family executives who (co-)run family firms are thought to require an almost impossible set of behavioural qualities. The aim of this exploratory study is to find out how specific leader behaviours of effective family executives and non-family executives may differ.

Based on Dulewicz and Higgs’ (2005) broad leadership frame, the authors draw attention to a large range of behaviours of family-firm executives. In-depth interviews were conducted with successful German executives, both family and non-family ones. Their answers had to contain specific behavioural examples.

More behavioural similarities than differences are shown between family- and non-family-based executives. Yet, the self-reflective communicative behavioural qualities of the non-family executives could balance a lack of such qualities among the family-based executives. Based on the three major differences – decision-making style, communication versatility and self-awareness – specific new research propositions are distilled about effective family firm leadership.

Practical suggestions for recruiting non-family executives are offered. Future quantitative longitudinal research on how to pair specific behavioural qualities of family and non-family based executives that optimise family-firm longevity is urgently needed.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is any difference in the association among the board of directors, audit committee effectiveness and the cost of debt between the family- and non-family-owned companies in the Sultanate of Oman.

This study uses a panel data set that has multiple observations on the same economic units. Each element has two subscripts: the group identifier, i (68 companies listed on the Muscat Securities Market), and within the group index denoted by t, which identifies time (2005-2011). The regression model of this study is based on the random effects model, which, according to the Hausman and Breusch-Pagan (LM) (Breusch and Pagan, 1980) tests, is an appropriate model.

This study finds that the association between a board of directors’ effectiveness and cost of debt is negative and significant for the full sample and non-family firms. This relationship, however, is weak and not significant for family firms. Additionally, this study indicates that audit committee effectiveness has a significant effect on the cost of debt based on the full sample and family firms, but is not significant for non-family firms.

This study examines firms in the Sultanate of Oman, where family ownership control is common. Based on a framework conceptualized according to the agency theory, using data from Oman enables a comparison between family and non-family firms with respect to the effect of the board of directors’ and audit committee’s characteristics as a composite measure. This composite measure captures their combined effect on the propensity of the cost of debt.