Abstract

When family firms decide to internationalize, they show a peculiar behavior compared to non-family business and linked to the fact the firm is family owned and managed. Despite the growing and recent body of literature about this topic and the amount of contributions made so far, it is still not clear the question of what and to what extent the family character of a firm has an impact on internationalization. In order to contribute to this debate we investigate both theoretically and empirically the relation between family involvement in management and foreign market entry modes.