D. Study 3: A Taxonomy of Small and Medium-sized International Family Firms

Abstract

This study investigates the linkage between the culture of family firms in terms of the organizational orientation, their strategy in terms of differentiation, cost leadership and marketing standardization and their structure in terms of integration, centralization and specialization. We discuss these factors and develop a taxonomy of small and medium-sized internationalized family firms. Family firms are a particularly interesting and distinctive group to research because these firms combine ownership and management (Gallo and Sveen 1991), have a strong organizational culture that fosters trust and tradition (Aronoff and Ward 1995) and differ from non-family firms with regard to internationalization (Fernández and Nieto 2006). Moreover, family firms comprise most of the world’s companies (Ibrahim, Angelidis and Parsa 2008). Indeed, some of the most successful and largest companies in the world are family firms.