Family Involvement- Firm Performance Link: Winning Configurations Revealed by Settheoretic Methods

Abstract

Prior empirical research has found positive, negative and neutral relationships between family involvement in business and firm performance. These inconsistent findings may be partly explained by the different levels of family involvement. Family firms are not homogeneous entities; there are family-owned, family-governed and family-managed firms. These variations lead to different configurations based on the components of family involvement which can be captured by using set-theoretic methods. Applying this method to an international sample of 6,611 firms, we identify seven configurations in firms that lead to superior financial performance.