Families and firms: The culture and evolution of family firms in britain and italy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Abstract

Family firms played a very similar role in the industrialisation of both Britain and Italy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In both countries the relatively-low transaction costs of family and community in an uncertain world meant that family capitalism predominated, whilst trends in the late nineteenth century and inter-war period have reinforced this trend. Yet, even in this latter period, international differences dictated by differences in the institutional environment and in the relationship between industry and the state have led to differing characteristics of family firms and their capabilities in Britain and Italy. The article explores how far these long-term trends, combined with changes specific to the period since the Second World War, explain the survival of dominant large-scale family firms in Italy but not in Britain.