Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/167767 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Citation: 
[Journal:] International Journal of Financial Studies [ISSN:] 2227-7072 [Volume:] 2 [Issue:] 3 [Publisher:] MDPI [Place:] Basel [Year:] 2014 [Pages:] 280-314
Publisher: 
MDPI, Basel
Abstract: 
This review article displays several attempts to define family businesses as well as a systematization approach to get new insights about the relationship between family business definitions and their application under different conditions such as legal framework, culture or regional understanding of family. Potential explanations for the ambiguity of what is meant by family firms are revealed by reviewing 267 journal articles. A consensus about the object of investigation would result in a deeper understanding of family firms' uniqueness, might lead to more reliable comparative studies as well as interdisciplinary work (e.g., finance and family firms) and enables a quicker consolidation of family business research, especially in contrast to research on small and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurship. Therefore, the present review contributes to the development of family business research by providing an initial attempt to comprehensively systematized existing family firm definitions which could be used by researchers in family business research.
Subjects: 
family business
systematic literature review
cluster approach to systemize family business definitions
reasons for heterogeneity in family business definitions
implications for business management
JEL: 
D02
D20
D23
L25
L26
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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