Family Business Review

Ever since scholars recognized that family firms are heterogeneous, many studies have attempted to compare different types of family firms without ensuring that the source of heterogeneity is unique to family firms. When the source of heterogeneity among family firms resembles the source of heterogeneity among nonfamily firms, the problem of counterfactual indeterminacy bias can lead to misleading or irrelevant findings that fail to distinguish the effects of family influence from factors that affect all firms. We delineate common forms of this bias and offer recommendations to prevent it in research on family firm behavior and performance.

Prior research suggests that the territory in which firms operate shapes the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) orientation of family firms. Yet, we know little about how the owning families’ territorial bonds relate to CSR. Drawing on survey data from 316 Italian family firms, we examine the association between owning families’ emotional ties to place (place attachment) and CSR orientation, and whether this association operates indirectly through the firm’s economic and social ties to its local context (local embeddedness). Results indicate a positive relationship between place attachment and CSR, partially mediated by local embeddedness, thus advancing a place-based perspective on CSR in family firms.

This paper examines the influence of family management and firm age on a firm’s decisions on product versus international diversification. Based on socioemotional wealth literature and the temporal dimension of family influence, we hypothesize that family management prefers product diversification and that the positive impact of family management becomes stronger in older firms. Analyzing data from 422 manufacturing firms in the S&P 1,500, we find strong empirical support. Our findings remain robust to endogeneity concerns. This study contributes to the literature by offering new insights into how socioemotional wealth preservation and temporal factors jointly shape diversification strategies in publicly traded firms.

Although entrepreneurial orientation is central to family firms’ renewal and long-term survival, less is known about the executive cognitions and managerial conditions associated with its emergence. Integrating upper echelons theory with stewardship theory and relying on survey data from 165 family firms, we reveal that the CEO’s perception of TMT strategic decision quality positively relates to the family firm’s entrepreneurial orientation, particularly when led by a family CEO and with higher TMT family involvement. Our findings highlight CEO’s perceptions as cognitive cues associated with family firm’s entrepreneurial orientation, and family involvement as a managerial condition that strengthens this association.

Family-firm scholarship offers competing predictions about whether family control protects or threatens market integrity. We argue that the answer depends on how family involvement is exercised. Drawing on socioemotional wealth and agency-entrenchment perspectives, we examine 8,634 U.S. firm-years (2007–2018) and link family-firm constructs to exchange-generated surveillance flags from NASDAQ SMARTS. Founder-CEO control is associated with approximately 9.5% fewer flags, family governance involvement with 21.3% more, and deep multigenerational family control with 47.1% more. The findings reveal heterogeneous identity and entrenchment mechanisms within family firms and connect family-firm governance to a market-integrity outcome previously absent from the literature.