ABSTRACT
In emerging economies, roughly 60 percent of private-sector companies with revenues of $1 billion or more were family owned in 2010. A McKinsey survey of 60 leading family-owned companies in Asia, South America, and Central America showed their "organizational health" to be equal to or better than other companies in the same markets. Despite the importance and significance of family business, however, management scholars have devoted little attention to this topic overall and have mainly focused on family firms in developed economies. Moreover, theories in the family business literature are often based on particular points of view (e.g., Anglo-American) and tested in developed economies. Recent studies have attempted to resolve this issue by focusing on culture in terms of its effects on family entrepreneurial behavior and family firm heterogeneity, and by relating family firms and their geographical context.
