Family Business Pursuing Exporting in an Institutional Context

A growing amount of studies in family firms struggled to measure the role of family involvement in internationalization performance. The valuable results reveal the levels of family involvement. However, the familiness dimensions are varied in different studies and are limited to specific societies (Merino et.al., 2015; Kontinen & Ojala, 2011; Holt et al., 2010; Frank et al., 2010; Calabrò et.al, 2009, Sirmon et al., 2008; Claver et al., 2007; Rutherford et.al, 2006; Kelien et al., 2005). The various dimensions in different societies with particular characteristics in terms of institutional context seem unable to provide a common global manifestation of familiness and its effects on internationalization. As a result, the first gaps of understanding in FFs is the global pervasiveness of familiness and the effects of familiness on the internationalization performance. Furthermore, the micro-level behavior of family business can be conceptualized as embedded in institutions in a society at the macro level. Various institutions across different societies shape family business attitudes and influence their exporting and any form of internationalization tendency. Therefore, another gap is the impacts of institutions upon family business and their internationalization.

These gaps motivate my main research problem, what are the effects of institutions on familiness and the effects of familiness on internationalization?To address these questions, five research questions are designed as follows:

• Q1: what are the manifestation types of familiness and how the global pervasiveness of familiness can be mapped?
• Q2: what is the global pervasiveness of institutions for family firms in different markets?
• Q3: what are the effects of institutions on familiness?
• Q4: What are the effects of institutions on family business internationalization? (Examination of moderating effect of institutions on relationship between familiness dimensions and export).
• Q5: What are the effects of familiness on internationalization process? (Main effects of familiness dimensions on the export).

Contributions

First, institutional support for family business, and its three pillars have not been mapped around the world, the present research contributes to identify the institutional variation and support around the world for family businesses, and the variation in each dimension, and the intertwining and variation among the three pillars. Second, examining the effects of three pillars of institutions on the familiness dimensions (management, ownership and staffing) in different regions. Third, the study contributes in a comparative approach to examine the role of institutions on family firms’ export in different national contexts and the effects of family involvements on the exporting. The results reveal empirical effects of different institutions on the export in different regions.