ABSTRACT

In contrast to widespread assessments that family enterprises lack sufficient resources and capabilities to go global, many family companies are competing successfully in an increasingly globalized business environment. Worldwide, a large number of thriving multinationals are still family-owned and/or under family control. While there is abundant literature on the phenomenon of globalization from many different disciplines, neither the literature on multinationals nor the growing field of family business studies have systematically investigated family multinationals yet. This volume is one of the first to deal explicitly with family multinationals and the role of the family in internationalization. It situates itself at the crossroads of internationalization studies on the one hand and family business research on the other.

Why do families continue to play such a large role in some of the most prominent firms in emerging and mature economies? How did they manage to maintain ownership control, yet divest of unrelated business ventures? How did they internationalize yet maintain control? This book identifies the idiosyncratic strategies and structures of family multinationals in different countries and at different points in time. A comparative historical and case study approach allows us to explore the role of the family through the firms’ various internationalization pathways and understand long-term developments and path dependencies.

chapter 1|18 pages

Family Multinationals

Entrepreneurship, Governance, and Pathways to Internationalization 1

part I|52 pages

Internationalization Pathways and Governance Choices

chapter 2|17 pages

Are Family Firms “Reluctant Internationalizers”?

Insights from the History of Indian Family Businesses

chapter 3|17 pages

A Family Multinational's Quest for Unity

Siemens's Early Business in India, 1847–1914

chapter 4|16 pages

Family Capitalism and Internationalization

The Case of the Czech Family Firm Bat'a up to the Early 1940s

part II|62 pages

The Visible Hand of Governments and Supporting Institutions

chapter 5|23 pages

Globalization from a 17mm-Diameter Cylinder Perspective

Mittelstand Multinationals

chapter 6|21 pages

Fast Learning

Business, Kinship, and Politics as Determinants of the Growth and Internationalization of the Largest Chinese Family Businesses

part III|58 pages

From Local Base to Global Expansion

chapter 8|19 pages

Carving out a Place in International Markets

Success and Failure in European Family Papermaking Firms (1800–2010)

chapter 9|15 pages

The Feltrinellis—Going Global with the Timber Trade

How to Build a Fortune Using a Scarce Resource (1854–1942)

chapter 10|22 pages

Becoming Global, Staying Local

The Internationalization of Bertelsmann, 1962–2010

part IV|49 pages

Inside the Family

chapter 11|16 pages

“This Sad Affair”

Separation, Sentiment, and Familism in a Nineteenth-Century Family Multinational

chapter 12|16 pages

Two Countries, One Home, One Occupation

Italian Ice Cream Parlors as a Family Business in Germany, 1900–Today 1

chapter 13|15 pages

When Du Pont Entered Mexico (1902–1928)

How the Network Played the Game