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The purpose of this paper is to explore the internationalization process of small and medium family-owned businesses (FOBs). The authors strive to explain the extent to which family business CEOs identify a signal in either the domestic or international environment for internationalization as a viable business opportunity.

The authors rely on signal detection theory to develop a conceptual model that explains the cognitive process inducing the CEO-founder of an FOB to discover and exploit an opportunity in the international market.

The conceptual model proposes that constraints in a family-firm’s domestic market, as well as opportunities in the foreign market act, as signal strength. However, family business CEO-founders’ centrality and inward orientation might lead them to ignore a signal by generating noise and reducing the motivation to collect further information concerning the trustworthiness of the signal.

The model is conceptual; future research should strive for a potential way to operationalize the cognitive process described herein. In addition, the theoretical argument has been developed in the context of family firms wherein the founder plays a pivotal role. Future research may extend the theoretical arguments to those family firms that are at an advanced stage of development.

The study reconciles conflicting findings concerning the internationalization of FOBs. In doing so, the authors employ an interdisciplinary approach and develop a conceptual model that sheds additional light on the cognitive processes underlying internationalization decisions among founder-centered family firms.

This paper addresses the phenomenon of venture capital firms which are also family businesses (VCFBs). The purpose of this paper is to explore and understand the phenomenon of VCFB by answering the following questions: What are the features of professionalization in VCFBs? And, how do professionalization and types of family businesses explain the strategies and governance of VCFBs?

As an explorative case study, it maps the Swedish venture capital (VC) industry and compares two VCFBs and their business investments with regard to strategy and governance.

By suggesting two major configurations, the study explains how family business development and levels of professionalization relate to differences in VCFBs’ strategies, which in turn, affect their governance. The personal VCFB features active owners who personally take responsibility roles and strongly focus on customers and relationships. The administrative VCFB strongly focuses on predetermined financial metrics, high ethical awareness among board members, and ongoing interplay between the active family board members and minority shareholders.

The study was conducted in Sweden and concerns Swedish VCFBs. The paper contributes to the literature by combining the two currently separate research streams, i.e. family business and VC, highlighting the importance and consequences of family ownership in VC businesses.

The present study provides stock market investors and stock analysts with a deeper understanding of VCFBs’ strategy incentives. By identifying the kind of VCFB and its relation to strategy, more reasonable assessments and analyses of the VCFBs’ actions will be possible. Family firms willing to accept VC-finance should consider the type of VC and the potential consequences of family ownership.

This study is the first to classify VC firms as family businesses. Moreover, it shows the features of professionalization in VCFBs by suggesting a set of configurations.

The purpose of this study is to understand venture capital family businesses (VCFBs) governance of portfolio companies through the deal process.

This study applies a theory-developing approach. A model of VCFB governance is developed whose key aspects are illuminated by four examples (cases) of VCFBs.

Recent research suggests that a venture capital firm's corporate deal processes can be divided into the pre-deal, deal and post-deal phases. Based on the age, size and succession dimensions, propositions for how a governance trajectory develops for VCFBs, affecting the deal process of target family firms (TFFs), are presented. These propositions highlight how the family owners' actions and behavior are related to VCFB governance, which in turn, influences the three phases involved in making an investment.

The propositions suggest how personal and administrative VCFBs' governance of the deal process of portfolio companies is significantly affected by centrifugal and centripetal forces that drive the respective types of governance where third-generation family owners appear as changers of governance approach.

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the internationalization of family firms; to investigate how the framework by Bell et al. on the internationalization patterns of firms could explain the internationalization pathways taken by family‐owned small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs); and to identify typical patterns and features in the various pathways taken by family‐owned SMEs.

This paper reports findings from an in‐depth multiple case study with eight Finnish family‐owned SMEs.

The ownership structure had the most important role in defining the internationalization pathways followed by the family‐owned SMEs: a fragmented ownership structure led to traditional internationalization pathway whereas a concentrated ownership base led to born global or born‐again global pathways.

Family entrepreneurs should carefully consider the division of ownership and seek to build new relationships in foreign markets, in addition to their primary co‐operators.

The authors extend the integrative model of small firm internationalization by Bell et al. toward family‐owned SMEs and highlight the most important dimensions in the different internationalization pathways of family SMEs. The ownership dimension is integrated within discussion on differing internationalization pathways. The authors utilize a family business specific perspective (the stewardship perspective), in order to understand the specific features of internationalization among family SMEs, and also how these features differ between family SMEs and other firms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how psychic distance affects the internationalization process, foreign market entry (FME), and entry mode choice of Finnish small and medium‐sized family enterprises (family SMEs) operating in France.

The paper reports findings from an in‐depth case study covering four Finnish manufacturing family SMEs operating in the French market. The data were analyzed using the Uppsala model and distance creating and distance‐bridging factors encountered in the FME to France.

The findings reveal that the family SMEs mainly followed a sequential process and favored indirect entry modes before entering the French market. The French market was psychically distant, but the case firms were able to overcome the distance by using different distance‐bridging factors. Based on the findings, it can be argued that psychic distance has an especially important role in the internationalization and the FME of family SMEs, mainly because of their general cautiousness caused by family presence.

Although the case study method made it possible to acquire detailed knowledge about the firms' internationalization, the findings can be generalized only to some extent.

Managers of family SMEs and family members should be provided with the capacity to overcome distance‐creating factors, they might encounter in their FME. The decision to internationalize is a strategic change that will most probably change the historical harmony of the firm.

Prior research has mainly focused only on general internationalization pathways of family SMEs. In addition and contrast to the previous studies, this paper investigates the role of perceived psychic distance in family SMEs' FME and entry mode choice in a certain target market.

The purpose of this paper is to deal with informal entrepreneurial activity of micro and small family businesses in the specific transitional environment.

The paper uses two cases – an informal micro business (“marginal” family business), and a formal retail small firm (“simpleton” family firm), respectively, of a panel conducted in 2013–2015 in Moscow.

First, the real distribution of responsibilities between family members is informal; it relies more on interpersonal trust and “common law.” Second, exactly the ease of governing such trust-based businesses for the founders’ generation sets limits of succession of small-scale family businesses. Third, as trust in the state is very low, the policy of Russian authorities to quickly force informal entrepreneurs to become legalized is substantially wrong; the results would be either a transformation of “simpleton” into “marginal” businesses or quitting business.

Research limitations of the study are the number of observations and the localization of the panel only in the capital of Russia.

The fundamental failure of Russian State policy toward small-scale family businesses is its attempt to convince “marginal” to formalize and to oppress “simpleton” family businesses pushing them into informality. In fact, it should be designed vice versa: tolerate “marginal” businesses and let them to “live and die” while shaping a friendly environment for “simpleton” family firms.

The paper argues that the most important facet of informality in small family entrepreneurship is the informal property rights and governance duties’ distribution among the family members.

Family business has been widely discussed in the literature. Still, a holistic approach summarizing the family business concept in entrepreneurship is fragmented to date. This paper aims to explore the multimedia view of family business research in entrepreneurship and finds the key theme discussed by researchers.

In this paper, a systematic literature review on family business and its role in entrepreneurship have been conducted. The literature review consists of bibliometric and content analyzes. Bibliometric research offers quantitative insights, whereas content analysis provides the qualitative evaluation of the literature.

The findings suggest that recent research in this area focuses on exploring the role of women entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship in the family business. The literature also finds that because of the nature of family businesses, successors get the opportunity to use their family’s network, social status, financing and opportunity toward a well-developed market.

This paper may help researchers and practitioners to identify the past and current research trends related to family business and entrepreneurship.

The concepts from network theory are applied for content analysis to identify and explore various family business and entrepreneurship literature sub-domains.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature and process of leadership in a mid‐sized, family‐controlled bank in Singapore in order to understand how it grew and developed under family control.

The paper draws on distributed leadership as a theoretical framework in exploring how a major corporate acquisition was conceived and undertaken to advance the bank's growth and development. Data were obtained through structured interviews with managers based on a three‐part discussion protocol following a pre‐interview questionnaire.

An “extended” system of leadership involving different levels of managers is developed that successfully completed the acquisition and produced significant growth from the combined businesses.

Based on a single case, the paper does not claim that the observed phenomena are typical of mid‐sized family‐controlled businesses (FCBs). However, for scholars, the paper suggests how studying leadership practice in such FCBs may produce insights that challenge the popular view of an all‐powerful family leader by substituting a more nuanced perspective of a collaborative leadership system that facilitates entrepreneurial activity down the firm.

For managers, the study suggests how deeply developed collaboration among different levels of managers may produce competitive advantage for FCBs that seek further growth and development.

It is suggested how further research of the growth processes of mid‐sized FCBs may maximize the value of entrepreneurial opportunities for their “extended” family of stakeholders, specifically for their customers with whom FCBs typically enjoy close relations.

The paper fills an empirical gap in the literature on competitive, mid‐sized FCBs by articulating a process in which a unique competency is developed for their ongoing survival as a family‐controlled enterprise.

This study explores how the family influences the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) process in immigrant businesses.

The paper draws on inductive multiple-case studies using 34 in-depth interviews. This paper relies on three cases of immigrant entrepreneurs originating from Mexico and Colombia that established firms in Sweden.

The results suggest that EO development trajectories vary in the presence of family roles (i.e. inspirers, backers and partners), resulting in the immigrant family business configurations of family-role-influenced proactiveness, risk-taking and innovation.

The immigrant family configurations drive three EO-enabling scenarios: (1) home-country framing, (2) family backing and (3) transnational translating. Immigrant family dynamics facilitate the development of EO over time through reciprocal interaction processes across contexts. This study indicates that, through family dynamics, EO develops as mutually interactive processes between the immigrant entrepreneur's family in the home and host countries.