Abstract
Family multinationals may seem an unusual concept at first because of misconceptions about family enterprises. Nevertheless, this book puts forward the notion that often from humble origins, some family businesses grow to become leading firms, based on well-known household products and services, expanding beyond their home countries. A few of those firms often become, over one or more generations, successful multinationals (Discua Cruz, 2011: 730). Being a member of a family that was involved in trade across regions, I would argue that the mere fact that these internationally active family businesses have survived the test of time, under the control of the founding families, is an achievement in itself. For some time, there has been a need for a comprehensive review on family enterprises that have expanded operations across the world. This book edited by Christina Lubinski, Jeffrey Fear and Paloma Fernandez Perez takes a key step towards understanding this phenomenon from diverse angles. It reflects the work of high-calibre scholars focusing on family business research in various national contexts.
At the outset, the editors initially highlight the varied misconceptions often found in literature about family business internationalizations and the efforts by researchers to challenge such views. Crucial concepts, theories and themes on internationalization are discussed, with the editors arguing strongly for the relevance of crossing disciplinary borders when studying family multinationals. This introduction is the prelude for four sections that embrace perspectives on governance, institutions, paths to internationalization and the often overlooked family realm. The reader will find that the book comprises chapters relying on rich historical analysis, quantitative data and comprehensive literature review. This approach helps to provide a meaningful balance to deepening understanding of the concept of family multinationals across the subsequent four sections.
The first of the four sections in the book focuses on internationalization pathways and governance choices. A strong theme is the challenge to the misconception that family firms will be reluctant to internationalize. Drawing on research from family businesses in India, Germany and the Czech Republic, the various ways by which family firms and the families behind them are able to develop diverse mechanisms to steer their companies while expanding operations across nations are explored. The second section focuses on the visible hand of governments and supporting institutions and draws from research on Germany, China and Mexico to provide exemplars. A robust notion within this section is the relevance of institutional support and the advantage that contextual aspects provide to family firms aiming to internationalize. This support may allow such firms to challenge and often change standards within the sectors in which they operate. The third section emphasizes one path to internationalization: from a local base to global expansion. In this section, the family firms showcased demonstrate a gradual, yet not necessarily slow, approach to business expansion overseas. Often hard-to-imitate resources and capabilities are nurtured over a period of time in family firms (Sirmon and Hitt, 2003) before the decision is made to leap outside familiar territory. Yet, when this happens, it can fuel the expansion of firms over time and across nations. The final section focuses on the family dynamics behind family multinationals and draws from family accounts from a number of countries. The way in which families negotiate and adapt to diverse contextual challenges when expanding their businesses worldwide is emphasized. It shows that the family system and its life cycle, alongside inherent processes, influence the way in which businesses expand operations overseas. Emotions, skills, knowledge and tradition often blend into the way families cope with establishing and developing their firms abroad. Overall, these four sections provide relevant findings and perspectives that challenge long-standing misconceptions.
My only concern regarding this exceptional book is that it misses out on a great opportunity to conclude with a proposal on the expansion of existing models or theories of internationalization. The findings emerging from studying family multinationals in this book provide a fresh perspective by drawing on examples of businesses that challenge the dominant approaches to, and understandings of, internationalization. Future research could use the findings of this book to further advance, for example, a graphical representation or a model of a new perspective. This would take further the relevant findings of this text. Furthermore, this book calls for attention to cross-cultural comparisons as many of its findings are culturally influenced and determined, and thus, further comparisons are urgently needed (Gupta and Levenburg, 2010). As the authors suggest, many questions still remain. The range of themes presented highlights the growing importance of this subject of study. As this title is part of a series of international studies in business history, I would anticipate future volumes considering these topics.
Overall, this book contributes to understanding better the uniqueness and relevance of family multinationals. It challenges the common perception that family firms are mostly local players hesitant to participate in the international arena. The family multinationals referred to demonstrate that the families managing their business are not shy in expanding their business activities beyond their home borders. Logically, this will be affected by diverse contextually based factors, but also by the goals of family members who work together across and over generations. Such intricate relationship highlights a complex balance in the objectives pursued within family businesses (Howorth et al., 2010). This book invites readers to take a closer multidisciplinary look at family businesses that have expanded their operations across countries and continents. I would strongly recommend this book for adoption, particularly in courses related to entrepreneurship, internationalization and family businesses.