Introduction

Abstract

Family firms play an important role within society and represent a predominant organizational form of businesses within the world’s economic landscape. Depending on the country in focus and the particular definition of the term family firm that underlie individual studies, literature estimates that family firms represent about 50-96% of all businesses (International Family Enterprise Research Academy, 2003). Additionally, numerous scholars regularly point out to the significant role of family firms within our economic system and the need to scientifically investigate this form of organization (Anderson & Reeb, 2003; Morck & Yeung, 2004; Chrisman et al., 2005; Chrisman et al., 2007). As a consequence, research on family firms has grown rapidly during the last two decades (Gomez-Mejia et al., 2011).