Family involvement as influencer on family firm’s growth

Abstract

This paper analyzes the relationship between family involvement and a firm’s growth. Family businesses present unique features, which make them different from other companies. Therefore, their desire to achieve long-term growth and/or survival could be motivated by different reasons from those of non-family firms. One of the possible strategic alternatives to guarantee these long-term objectives is the internationalization strategy. The empirical study carried out is quantitative research based on the partial least squares (PLS) methodology. The study population comprises Spanish wine and olive oil production companies. Our results show how economic reasons account for the relationship between family involvement in the business and achievement of their growth. Likewise, we find that, depending on their international propensity as moderating variable, the mediation effect of the underlying business economic motivations is total for non-international firms, whereas that effect is a partial one if the firms have become international.