My colleague Prof. Marta Elvira asked me if I could write about family business and globalization. I do so with pleasure but with the fear that some readers might find my conclusions disappointing.<\/p>\n
In this post, I won\u2019t refer to large corporations but to medium-sized companies<\/strong>, defined by the European Union<\/a> as firms with revenues of \u20ac50 million and up.<\/p>\n Let’s start with a general overview of companies\u2013both family and non-family\u2013in Spain, the European Union and the United States. Based on our research, 0.10% of Spanish companies earn sales over \u20ac50 million, and 0.15% of U.S. firms<\/strong>. This data might come as a surprise but these are the official figures from Spain\u2019s National Institute of Statistics (INE) and the U.S. Census Bureau.<\/p>\n As far as the European Union is concerned, the data from Eurostat isn\u2019t that far off: the percentage of EU companies with 50 and more employees stands at 2.58%<\/strong>, and only 0.5% of companies employ 250 people or more.<\/p>\n Clearly, we\u2019re talking about a tiny fraction of family firms<\/strong>, because I think it\u2019s safe to say that global expansion requires a certain organizational size. As I\u2019ve said on many occasions, the world economy is made up of SMEs, a fact confirmed by our research.<\/p>\n Before the outbreak of COVID-19, it seemed as though firms had to be global<\/strong> or risk being labeled in the \u201closer category.\u201d In the pandemic’s wake and its ensuing supply chain crisis, many firms are seriously reconsidering their levels of global exposure.<\/p>\n Let’s turn to the topic of family business. In my experience with family-owned firms, whenever there\u2019s talk of globalization\u2013or previously, internationalization\u2013the same question crops up: \u201cWho in the family is willing to live in that country?\u201d<\/em><\/strong> I intentionally started this post with data to offer some context on the size of businesses weighing this option. And for this company size, the question seems relevant.<\/p>\n That question leads us to the next one: \u201cWhat\u2019s the degree of familiness?\u201d<\/em><\/strong> defined by Habbershon and Williams<\/a> as \u201cthe bundle of resources distinctive to a firm as a result of system interactions between the family, its individual members and the company.\u201d<\/p>\n It’s worth thinking about familiness before broaching the subject of globalization<\/strong> and numerous other issues in the realm of family business because of its indisputable role in shaping the company\u2019s strategic decisions.<\/p>\n In a future post, we\u2019ll explore the impact of familiness on corporate strategy and financial performance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Image on homepage: Marcos Paulo Prado<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a> \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My colleague Prof. Marta Elvira asked me if I could write about family business and globalization. I do so with pleasure but with the fear that some readers might find my conclusions disappointing. In this post, I won\u2019t refer to large corporations but to medium-sized companies, defined by the European Union as firms with revenues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":438,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[117557,782,58251],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-familiness","tag-globalization","tag-internationalization","megacategoria-mc-family-business"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t