Guido Corbetta

The Board of Directors in Family Firms: One Size Fits All?

Boards of directors are governance bodies that serve important functions for organizations, ranging from monitoring management on behalf of different shareholders to providing resources. Board roles and characteristics vary widely among national cultures and, within each country, among different company types. Despite such variety, research on family business boards has been dominated by prescriptions and by the lack of an explicit recognition of family firm types characterized by different governance requirements. We argue that a contingency approach to defining board structure, activity, and roles offers useful guidance in understanding board contributions to family business performance. We develop a theory to show how board characteristics are a reflection of a family firms power, experience, and culture makeup. This theory provides insight into descriptions of existing board choices and prescriptions for family firms interested in starting or adapting their board of directors.

Ownership, Governance, and Management Issues in Small and Medium-Size Family Businesses: A Comparison of Italy and the United States

This research note reports survey results of 252 Italian family firms based on the MassMutual framework. The objectives of the survey were to analyze the structure and behavior of Italian small and medium-size family firms and compare them with those in the United States. The note focuses on these comparisons with regard to family involvement, ownership and governance structures, top management teams, decision-making processes, strategic goals, and succession perspectives. The paper goes on to explore the implications of survey results for family firms, researchers, and practitioners.

Patterns of Development of Family Businesses in Italy

Italy is characterized by a considerable presence of small-, medium-, and even large-sized family businesses. After identifying four types of family businesses, this article analyzes three patterns of development: managerialization, the rise in the number of family partners, and the opening of the capital to nonfamily partners. The article, based on empirical research involving almost seventy Italian enterprises of various sizes, aims at informing an international audience of the state of the art of family businesses in Italy.

Boards of Directors in Italian Family Businesses

This paper presents some of the early results of an international research project conducted in Italy and coordinated by Prof. Miguel Angel Gallo. The research project involved Spain, Portugal, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, and the U.S. The authors of this paper are responsible for the Italian part of the project. The project aims to further the understanding of the role of the board of directors in family businesses, and how the board functions.

Preserving Socioemotional Wealth in Family Firms: : Asset or Liability? The Moderating Role of Business Context

We ask whether choices aimed at preserving socioemotional wealth (SEW) represent an asset or a liability in family–controlled firms. Specifically, we consider one major SEW–preserving mechanism—having as chief executive officer (CEO) a member of the controlling family—and hypothesize that this choice is (1) an asset in business contexts, such as industrial districts, in which tacit rules and social norms are relatively more important, but (2) a potential liability in contexts like stock exchange markets, where formal regulations and transparency principles take center stage. The results from our empirical analysis confirm these hypotheses.

Transitional Leadership of Advisors as a Facilitator of Successors’ Leadership Construction

Succession literature addressed factors affecting the development of successors’ leadership skills. Yet the role professional advisors play in this process is not well understood. This study contrasts the detailed descriptions of four advisor-directed leadership development processes, to suggest a grounded theory of how advisors can facilitate the construction of successors’ leadership. Adopting an insider–outsider approach to the collection and analysis of ethnographic data, the study revealed that the assumption of a transitional leadership role by advisors—an interim leadership held by the advisor while supporting the successor’s leadership development—was critical to moving the succession process forward.

When Do Non‐Family CEOS Outperform in Family Firms? Agency and Behavioural Agency Perspectives

Family firms represent a globally dominant form of organization, yet they confront a steep challenge of finding and managing competent leaders. Sometimes, these leaders cannot be found within the owning family. To date we know little about the governance contexts under which non-family leaders thrive or founder. Guided by concepts from agency theory and behavioural agency theory, we examine the conditions of ownership and leadership that promote superior performance among non-family CEOs of family firms. Our analysis of 893 Italian family firms demonstrates that these leaders outperform when they are monitored by multiple major family owners as opposed to a single owner; they also outperform when they are not required to share power with co-CEOs who are family members, and who may be motivated by parochial family socioemotional priorities.

Crossroads of Entrepreneurship Research: An Introduction

— brought together people actively engaged in improving our knowledge of entrepreneurialactivity, and in diffusing it through their corporations or institutions. Economists, businesshistorians and management scholars from pre-eminent Italian and foreign institutions ofhigher learning presented and discussed issues at the forefront of research in entrepreneurship.Key issues addressed in presentations and discussions included: How do social and institutionalcontexts promote or hinder entrepreneurial activity? How is technology reshaping theconditions of entrepreneurial action? How do financial systems and institutions selectivelyand effectively support entrepreneurial ventures? How can entrepreneurial action be fosteredin established firms or hostile environments? How does governance affect entrepreneurialaction? In the end, a panel of members of the political, financial and business communitieswas asked to comment on the research findings in light of their practical experience, andto bring their views on changing patterns of entrepreneurship in firms and regions.This book brings together a selection of the papers presented at the conference and asynthesis of the final roundtable discussion. The title of the book —

An Institution-Based View of Large Family Firms: A Recap and Overview:

This article sketches the contours of an institution-based view of family ownership and control in large firms, with a focus on institutional roots, institutional relatedness, and institutional transitions. The institution-based view brings considerable continuity to family-firm research. It also offers significant novelty in helping resolve some puzzles. Specifically, it answers why the Berle and Means hypothesis on the “inevitability” of separation of ownership and control has not received support in many parts of the world. Finally, its broad scope enables us to integrate institution-based arguments with an important recent debate on the socioemotional wealth (SEW) priorities of family firms.

Fostering Entrepreneurship in Established Family Firms

Individual commitment-related factors are examined in determining entrepreneurial behavior in family firms. Three contributions to entrepreneurial scholarship on family firms are offered. First, a survey based on 1,233 family firms provides a broad, general picture of both individual- and organizational-level antecedents of entrepreneurial activities in these firms. Second, the survey reveals three different types of family firms—founder-based, sibling/cousin consortium, and open family firms. Third, analysis based on four follow-up case studies shows some of the processes through which upbringing, education, previous professional experience, and individual motivation may promote values that are more directly related to entrepreneurial orientation in active family members. Conclusions indicate that individual characteristics are crucial as preconditions for entrepreneurial behavior—these are the raw materials with which an entrepreneurial personality can be created. Respondents to the surveys confirmed the importance of developing managerial and leadership skills through work experience—i.e., it was easier to gain the necessary knowledge about the company and the industry through direct contact with the business. (JSD)