Following calls to capture the consequences of family involvement in the business, this article empirically investigates the mediating role of board processes (i.e., effort norms, use of knowledge and skills, and cognitive conflicts) and board (control and strategy) tasks in the relationship between family involvement and firm performance in small and medium-sized companies. To address this purpose, we developed a theoretical model using family business and corporate governance literature. We collected data from one sample of small and medium-sized enterprises, and we applied structural equation modeling to validate and test constructs and relationships. Our results show that (a) family involvement in the business has a positive impact on effort norms and use of knowledge and skills, and a negative one on cognitive conflicts, (b) board processes have generally a positive influence on board tasks performance, and (c) board strategy task performance positively influences firm financial performance, while board control tasks do not have a significant impact. Results have implications for both research and practice.

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Family firms may experience different agency conflicts to the classical principal-agent conflict, which arise depending on the varying extent of family involvement. Agency cost control mechanisms should be introduced to cope with them. The paper focuses on family involvement, in governance (FIG) and in management (FIM), agency cost control mechanisms, and financial performance in family SMEs. The results show that FIG is negatively related to agency cost control mechanisms, but they are positively related to FIM, Finally, the importance of agency cost control mechanisms positively influences the financial performance. Hypotheses were tested using LISREL.

The main objective of this paper is to explore the role of family councils vis‐à‐vis corporate governance mechanisms. Particularly, the paper explores whether family councils perform only their distinctive family governance role or if they also substitute for the roles performed by corporate governance control mechanisms. Based on a sample of 243 Italian family SMEs, our research findings show that the family council partially substitutes the shareholders' meeting and the board of directors in playing their respective corporate governance roles of ownership and monitoring. These findings are interpreted in the light of both agency and relational perspectives.

Literature and practical evidence on the glass ceiling have showed that women's presence in ownership does not ensure that they can significantly influence firm decisional processes. Similarly women's presence in governance roles does not entail glass ceiling removal, even in family firms, which are expected to be a more favorable context. Moreover, literature on women's role in family firms has focused mostly on women's expectations, values, and objectives, on the decision-making processes led by women, on their leadership styles and so on. Very few studies have dealt with women's contribution in strategy formulation, organizational structure design, implementing and using managerial mechanisms. This article focuses on two main topics: the role of women in family firms and the professionalization of the company. It aims at understanding both women's involvement in governance and managerial roles, and the relationship with the family firms' professionalization. The findings reveal, on one hand, that family SMEs are a more favorable context for the removal of the glass ceiling only with regard to the roles of member of board of directors and functional director. On the other hand, they show that some managerial mechanisms, such as incentives and managerial reporting systems, are more relevant when women are involved in governance and managerial roles.

Acquisitions and mergers of equals often fail to deliver shareholder value, largely because poor integration practices do not allow synergies to be created. The issue has been addressed by several studies from two different research streams: the first looks at the combination of resources after the acquisitions and the second focuses on the human factor. We propose an integrated model where the effects of these key aspects are tested simultaneously and where three independent variables are included: the extent of planning and knowledge from previous acquisitions and knowledge from previous relationships. We believe that through the model managers can prioritise their actions and select an appropriate time horizon for the integration.

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A recent stream of research has focused on tax aggressiveness, the downward management of taxable income through tax planning activities, and has analyzed its antecedents and consequences, mainly on public companies. Only very few studies, however, have been carried out in the context of private family business and have investigated whether some family firms are more tax aggressive than others, considering some specific features of family firms, such as their distinctive agency conflicts and socioemotional wealth. In this paper, we investigate the antecedents of tax aggressiveness in a sample of private Italian family firms. Our research findings show that tax aggressiveness is positively associated with ownership concentration, the presence of independent members in the board, and the adoption of reporting mechanisms. Instead, we found a negative relation between tax aggressiveness and the use of both strategic planning and a combination of managerial control systems (both planning and reporting mechanisms). We did not find any relation between family CEO and tax aggressiveness. In summary, overall, our findings show that family involvement in ownership, an independent board. and managerialization (the use of managerial mechanisms) are relevant antecedents of tax aggressiveness in private family businesses.