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This study investigates the relationship between family-managed firms and firm employment growth by considering the effects of location and economic crisis as moderating variables.

The study uses random-effect models on a large panel dataset of Spanish manufacturing firms covering 2003 to 2015 to estimate the joint effects of municipality size and economic crisis on firm employment growth.

The analysis reveals a positive association between family-managed firms and employment growth. However, this association is not uniform across space and time. When it considers location, the study finds that municipality size positively affects employment growth in family-managed firms but not in non-family firms. Additionally, while the study reveals that both firm types experience negative employment growth during the early stage of the global economic crisis (2007–08), it also finds that family-managed firms located in small municipalities downsize less than their non-family counterparts.

This study provides new evidence on the resilience of family-managed firms during economic crises, particularly those located in geographically bounded settings, such as small municipalities. When an adverse event, such as an economic crisis, jeopardizes employment levels, the embedded and trust-based relationships, between a family firm and its community leads them to prioritize employees' claims. However, family-managed firms' commitment to preserve jobs in small municipalities cannot be maintained over the long term; this effect disappears if the economic crisis is protracted. This study sheds new light on family-managed firms' distinctive behavior toward with local communities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the familiar character of the firm affects its size and performance. Specifically, if the confluence of business and family dimensions affects their chances of survival.

With data from 581 family, small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), the possible negative relationship between family, on the one hand, and size and performance, on the other hand is analyzed. First, the authors made a cluster analysis which distinguishes four groups attending the source of management, family next to external, and the generation, first against the rest. In addition, the authors contrast the existence of non‐linear adjustment through quadratic regressions.

Cluster analysis shows that the firms with family management in first generation are the ones with smaller size and worse performance. Regression analysis contrasts the negative relationship, but exclusively linear in nature. For all companies, regardless of the familiar character, the study confirms a negative relation of quadratic character. This paper clarifies the theories about the life cycle, so that they may be applicable to the family business. The companies must overcome the early stages, where the entrepreneurial impulse is key, to give way to more professionalized structures.

There are two fundamental contributions of this study. The first relates to the use of quadratic functions to model the relationship between family management and size and performance. The second relates to the life cycle of the family business and the role played by the family management; for that end the authors compare companies of family management in first generation with other companies to see to what extent the decision to retain a smaller size to preserve the family character is intentional.

The characteristics of businesses change with the change in ownership structure of the business. This study examines the change in ownership structure of the firm after the departure of lone founders, and its influence on dividend payout decisions of the firm.

The authors employed 4,302 firm-year observations of non-financial firms listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange over the period 2007–2021. To test the hypotheses, the authors employed ordinary least squares regression, and additionally, generalized method of moments estimation and fixed effect analysis were applied to check for the robustness of results.

Using the lens of agency theory and social identity theory, the authors report that the presence of lone founder (family owners) is negatively (positively) associated with dividend payout, however, transition of lone-founder ownership to family-owned and family-managed firm leads to more dividend payout, whereas its transition to family-owned and non-family-managed firm results in lesser dividend payments.

This study provides novel insight into the strategic behavior of lone founders and extend the limited family business heterogeneity literature by examining the effects of ownership transition and its influence on firm's dividend payout decisions.

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.

This study aims to empirically identify cultural patterns in the family business: paternalistic, laissez-faire, participative and professional. Our second goal is to understand whether, besides the variable generation, there are other aspects that are based on the different cultural patterns in first and second generations. Dyer (1986) proposed a theoretical model to exploit cultural change in the family business, describing a typical temporal sequence of cultural patterns throughout the succession process.

We selected a qualitative research approach with multiple case studies. Six small-sized Portuguese family businesses were selected. Data were collected from in-depth and semi-structured interviews with the family leaders and those directly responsible for human resource management.

We empirically identified paternalistic, laissez-faire and participative cultural patterns. We also verified that, besides the generation, there are other factors that are at the root of the emergence of a cultural pattern within family businesses: the founder’s age and academic level and the presence of a human resource technician, in the case of businesses managed by founders and the presence of the founder in the case of businesses managed by second generation.

By identifying different cultural patterns, we were able to verify that culture is an important variable to explain the relationship between the members of the family businesses and the way they are managed. Furthermore, this study suggests that more complex models, which consider multiple variables, are required to understand culture in the context of family businesses.

This paper aims to explore the application of the four-eyes principle (4EP) to management decisions in large family firms in the manufacturing sector, a heretofore neglected area of business and management research.

A theoretical analysis was first conducted of the 4EP in general and its application in family firms based on agency and stewardship theories. A qualitative field study of 15 large Austrian firms from the manufacturing sector with various degrees of family involvement was then conducted to explore how the 4EP is applied in these firms.

From the theoretical analysis, it can be concluded that the 4EP may generally serve as a mechanism to limit agency conflicts. Due to a theoretically lower level of agency conflicts in family firms than in non-family firms, a lower application of the 4EP in family firms can be expected. However, the field study shows that large family firms also regularly adopt the 4EP and that family-managed firms demonstrate a more flexible and opportunistic usage of the 4EP, limiting both its associated downsides and advantages. The present paper further shows that such flexible 4EP usage in family-managed firms may increase their abilities to make quick business decisions and to display high levels of flexibility; however, it may also increase the risk of making suboptimal decisions and experiencing unfavorable managerial behavior as firms grow in size and international activity.

This is the first paper to analyze the application of the 4EP in large family firms. Six propositions and a preliminary model of the 4EP in family firms are developed in the paper, which may lead to further research on the practical applications of the 4EP.

The study examines organization citizenship behavior (OCB) as a mediating variable between instrumental work values (IWVs) and organizational performance; and group differences between family manager and nonfamily manager for integrated models in family hotels. Data were collected from 189 hotels (n = 921) ranging from budget to three-star family hotels in Ghana using questionnaire administered conveniently. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Work value positively influences OCB and organizational performance of family hotels. OCB mediates the relationship between work values and organizational performance. The study also found significant support for group differences between family and nonfamily firms for IWVs and mediating effect of OCB on the relationship between IWVs and performance.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of moral and exchange capital of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure on the financial distress likelihood of family management firms in India.

The constructed data set (i.e. Morgan Stanley Capital International) and Kinder, Lydenberg and Domini social performance rating data format) consists of 66 firms with 655 firm-year observations for family-managed firms that practise sustainability reporting on the Indian stock market from 2010 to 2019.

The first findings show that current and previous year-two CSR disclosure reduces family management firms’ financial distress. The second findings show that the exchange capital of CSR disclosure does not influence the financial distress likelihood of family management firms in India. The third findings show that moral capital of CSR disclosure of the current year, previous year-one and previous year-two more than likely reduce financial distress likelihood of family management firms in India. This study is robust due to the lagged variables of the dependent variables.

Management investment must be high in moral capital to accrue social capital, but the success is dependent on a policy of continuous support for establishing family-related businesses. Similarly, society can benefit as the firm becomes attractive to green consumers as additions to the consumers of a CSR-driven firm. The consequences can cause firms to be more philanthropic to the community.

The novelty shows that to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no studies examine CSR disclosure’s moral and exchange capital on financial distress likelihood in India. Also, there is no evidence from the perspective of family management studies in CSR-financial distress likelihood nexus.

In this commentary, the author aims to question whether the socio-emotional wealth (SEW) construct should be limited to family firms by noting that non-family owners and founders, i.e. those who yet have to involve family in their enterprise‘s operations, management or ownership, are also motivated to maximize their socioemotional wealth.

The concept of SEW has generated significant traction in the family business literature and motivated an important body of work about how SEW alters decision-making in family firms. Professors Martin and Gomez–Mejia (this issue) extend past contributions by teasing apart complex relationships among the underlying dimensions of the construct. However, the domain of that paper, as well as the SEW construct, has heretofore been limited to family firms. The author builds his commentary on the work of Martin and Gomez–Mejia (this issue) to argue that the notion that SEW shapes decision-making in the owner controlled and owner-managed non-family firms, as well as family firms.

The author’s overarching conclusion is that there are several dimensions in which family interests materially alter decision-making but others in which family likely plays a moderating and possibly even a suppressor role. The surprising implication is that it may not be SEW per se that distinguishes family firms from non-family firms but rather how the family dynamic alters the influence of SEW on outcomes of interest.

Acknowledging that personal and familial SEW have a common foundation allows one to sharpen the research focus and shift it from questions about how SEW might alter decision-making in family firms to questions about how the presence of family members alters the influence of SEW on decision-making in owner-controlled and owner-managed firms. This commentary explicates the argument and offers some suggestions about how this re-framing might allow for the extension of the SEW concept from the family firm to its influence on founder-managed and non-family firms.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to know whether those firms that achieve greater efficiency from their intangible resources (intellectual capital) also obtain greater performance; and to analyze the moderating role of family management on that relationship in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This paper conducts an empirical study with different econometric models using a panel data sample of 6,132 paired firm-year observations from Spanish manufacturing SMEs in the period 2000–2013.

The findings suggest that intellectual capital efficiency is a key factor that allows the firm to achieve and maintain competitive advantages, obtaining greater performance. Additionally, this research also shows that the moderating role of family management can be a double-edged sword depending on the type of intangible resources.

This paper may give managers an insight in how to better utilize and manage intangible resources available in their firms to improve competitive advantage and ultimately firm performance. Additionally, on the basis of the Socioemotional Wealth perspective (SEW), this article argues that family-managed firms that focus on SEW preservation can enhance the impact of structural capital efficiency on performance.

This paper extends the prior literature by studying the joint effects of intellectual capital efficiency, distinguishing between human capital and structural capital efficiency, and family management on performance in the context of SMEs.