External managers, family ownership and the scope of SME internationalization

D’Angelo, A., Majocchi, A. and Buck, T. (2016) External managers, family ownership and the scope of SME internationalization. Journal of World Business, 51(4), pp. 534-547. (doi: 10.1016/j.jwb.2016.01.004)

Abstract

SMEs are important to world business and the majority of SMEs are family firms. Yet some family SMEs are inert, local firms while others are dynamic and international. Do certain governance structures encourage the scale and scope of their internationalization? We jointly apply social capital and corporate governance theories to explain the scope of family SMEs internationalization, and find that professional managers externally recruited from outside the family are important, but only for lower levels of family ownership, suggesting synergistic combinations of ownership and management. It is the combination of external capital with external managers that really works.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Buck, Professor Trevor
• Authors: D’Angelo, A., Majocchi, A., and Buck, T.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > Adam Smith Business School > Management
• Journal Name: Journal of World Business
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 1090-9516
• ISSN (Online): 1090-9516
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd.
• First Published: irst published in Journal of World Business 51(4): 534-547
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher