Family-firm relationships in italian SMEs: Ownership and governance issues in a double-fold theoretical perspective

This chapter offers a picture of family-firm relationships in Italian family-owned SMEs, based on a survey of over 500 family firms of small and medium size, which have been analysed in terms of ownership, governance, strategy, performance and succession. Some comparisons with non-family companies are offered as well. Survey results highlight that the relation between family and company is quite articulated in SMEsd as well, especially as far as governance structures and processes are concerned, and that this articulation has significantly increased in the last ten years and might continue to increase in the future. Strengths and weaknesses emerge in this evolving process: on one hand, family SMEs are progressing consistently with internal and external challenges. On the other hand, some fragilities persist on business and family side. To interpret past and future evolution of Italian family SMEs and to draw implications for families and for researchers we adopted a double-fold theoretical perspective, that is the contractual perspective of agency and a relational one based on social capital and other concepts.