Family-centered goals, geographic focus and family firms’ internationalization: a study on export performance

Bridging locality and internationalization – A research agenda on the sustainable development of family firms

“…In particular, they investigate how attention to economic and noneconomic goals affects the regional or global geographic focus of family firms in the internationalization process. Considering medium and large German family firms, Pongelli et al (2021) find that family-centred non-economic goals have a negative impact on export performance, instead stimulated by economic goals. This tension is stronger when adopting a global scope.…”

“…Local institutions and the institutional contexts play a fundamental role in the development of family firms (Pittino et al 2021;Ricotta and Basco 2021). The internationalization of family firms is strongly affected by their local ties and family-centred goals (Ranfagni, Runfola, and Sarti 2021;Pongelli et al 2021). These considerations, amongst many others, push for a general reflection on the need to contextualize family firms (James et al 2020) and better understand the role of multiple environments -local and global -in their sustainable development.…”

“…For example, Ranfagni, Runfola, and Sarti (2021) reflect on the authenticity that family firms are able to maintain when operating in international settings. Pongelli et al (2021) explore the relationship between family-centred goals and geographic focus in international markets. These two papers in the special issue therefor investigate how family firms develop from local to global firms, and the global environment influencing their strategy.…”

Corporate diversification and debt financing: Do family shareholders protect their control rights?

“…They possessed greater access to debt as they could effectively utilise and borrow from available resources. Several studies reported that PDI/unrelated diversifier presumably supported debt financing (Pongelli et al, 2021; Shi et al, 2021; Subramaniam & Wasiuzzaman, 2019). The reason is in PDI; less specific assets was used within the business group.…”

Out of the Comfort Zone! Family Leaders’ Subsidiary Ownership Choices and the Role of Vulnerabilities

“…Recently, a novel stream of research is trying to understand what happens when considering the heterogeneity of family firms and suggests that the SEW preservation tendency can vary among family firms (Calabrò, 2020;Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2014;Schulze & Kellermanns, 2015) with different implications on international strategic decisions (Alessandri et al, 2018;Pongelli et al, 2021). Yet, empirical evidence is scarce especially when it comes to choices of entry modes (Kao & Kuo, 2017;Pongelli et al, 2016;Xu et al, 2020).…”