Research on family firms – Definition, theories, and performance

Abstract

This chapter gives a brief overview of the main problems of family business research and offers basic information regarding family firms for a general understanding of the research field. One main issue is the question “What is a family business by definition?” In section 2.1, I briefly discuss alternative definitions of family firms that have been used in previous studies, and show how family firms are defined in this dissertation. Further, I present theories that help explain the differences between family and non-family firms (section 2.2). The chapter closes with a literature review of the performance differences between family and non-family firms and the related shortcomings (section 2.3).