ABSTRACT

Studies on industrial districts tend to highlight the advantages for companies arising from the network of relationships among actors based on the sharing of a common history, culture and norms of behaviour. It has been recently shown that family businesses succeed in leveraging on the district effect only under certain size conditions. In this work, we further advance the study of the ‘district’ effect on family businesses with the analysis of further key contingencies in addition to size, namely the actual level of family involvement and the technological sector. It has been recently shown that family businesses succeed in leveraging on the district effect only under certain size conditions: for example, according to Cucculelli and Storai’s (2015) results, medium-sized family businesses companies enjoy the advantages of operating in a district more than larger and smaller companies and than non-family businesses of similar size. In this work, we further advance the study of the ‘district’ effect on family businesses with the analysis of further key contingencies in addition to size, namely the actual level of family involvement and the technological sector. We argue that an intense involvement of family members in the governance of companies operating within districts, negatively impacts on companies’ performance due to the emergence of a phenomenon of overembeddedness. Further, we also show an industry technological paradigm, characterized by radical breakthroughs, combines with family involvement and location in a district to negatively influence a company’s performance. The study is conducted on the Bocconi Italian Observatory of Family Business and includes a final usable panel of 55,489 company/year observations.

摘要

对工业区的研究倾向于强调基于共享共同历史、文化和行为规范的参与者之间的关系网络所产生的公司优势。最近的研究表明，家族企业只有在一定规模条件下才能成功利用地区效应。在这项工作中，我们通过分析除规模之外的其他关键突发事件，即家族参与的实际水平和技术部门，进一步推进了对“地区”对家族企业的影响的研究。最近表明，家族企业只有在特定规模条件下才能成功利用地区效应：例如，根据 Cucculelli 和 Storai (2015) 的结果，中型家族企业比大小公司和类似规模的非家族企业更能享受在一个地区经营的优势。在这项工作中，我们通过分析除规模之外的其他关键突发事件，即家族参与的实际水平和技术部门，进一步推进了对“地区”对家族企业的影响的研究。我们认为，由于过度嵌入现象的出现，家族成员对在地区内运营的公司治理的强烈参与会对公司的业绩产生负面影响。此外，我们还展示了一种以彻底突破为特征的行业技术范式，结合家庭参与和地区位置对公司的业绩产生负面影响。