Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/333182 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Citation: 
[Journal:] ZFW - Advances in Economic Geography [ISSN:] 2748-1964 [Volume:] 68 [Issue:] 1 [Year:] 2024 [Pages:] 1-8
Publisher: 
De Gruyter, Berlin
Abstract: 
This editorial introduces the nexus between family firms, hidden champions, and regional development from an economic geography perspective. Family firms constitute the backbones of most local and regional economies, and some of them are even so-called hidden champions, which are global leaders in their market niches. At the same time, both entities are spatial sources of heterogeneity able to empower regions with difficult-to-imitate competitive and locational advantages that originate from the stickiness of their economic actors. It is mainly an empirical task to prove if this regional distinctiveness results from the structures and embeddings that family firms and hidden champions stand for (e.g., regional persistence and local rooting), and from the practices how these entities are owned, governed, managed (e.g., long-term business relations with [local] suppliers, customers, labour force, international excellence). By outlining three infant research directions on family firms and hidden champions from an economic geography perspective, this editorial frames the field, introduces and locates the contributions in this special issue therein, and calls for a spatially informed view on this rising cross-disciplinary field.
Subjects: 
family firms
hidden champions
mid-size firms
regional development
regional familiness
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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