The literature applying agency theory to management has focused on the performance advantages to be gained when ownership and control of the firm are aligned. This article investigates that premise by comparing family‐owned and ‐managed and professionally managed firms. The article presents the results of a field survey that examined the extent to which family‐owned and ‐managed firms differ across structural, process, and performance dimensions from their professionally managed counterparts. Significant differences exist between these two groups on both structural and process dimensions, and there is evidence that family‐owned and ‐managed firms exhibit performance advantages as a result of the unification of ownership and control.

This paper focuses on the impact that reputation has on the decision to proceed with a strategic alliance. Employing reputation constructs adapted from the Fortune Corporate Reputation Survey, we manipulated a target firm’s reputation in an experimental design. The subjects were placed in the role of CEO of the partner firm and asked whether they would engage in the alliance. Findings indicate that (1) reputation is a multidimensional construct, (2) the personal information‐processing characteristics of the decision‐maker mediate the reputation effect and may suppress the reputation information, (3) subjects may compensate weaker elements of reputation for stronger ones when making decisions, (4) product and management reputation are the most important factors, and (5) reputation is a factor affecting the decision regardless of whether the proposed target is a supplier or a competitor. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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This study provides evidence that collective strategy is prevalent in small firms in fragmented industries. COMPUSTAT data were combined with afield survey of small manufacturingfirms to test hypotheses concerning the relative frequencies of various collective strategies, the effects of environmental variables on collective activity, and the contribution of collective behavior to firm performance. Results indicate that agglomerate and organic collective strategies are the most frequently employed, and that munificent environments were positively associated with collective behavior and performance. Complex environments were negatively associated with collective strategy and no effect was found for volatile environments. The study also discusses methodological issues concerning the use of the COMPUSTAT database, and the usual practice of omitting cases with missing financial information.

This study extends existing work in the area of interorganizational relationships by exploring the interaction between the strategic posture of small firms and their propensity to form cooperative linkages. The most critical finding is that most small firms do use cooperative strategies, and that these strategies are used differentially by different strategic types. However, it is unclear whether there is a direct relationship between the competitive postures, interorganizational strategies, and small firm performance.