Family firm prerequisites for international business operations: a production and marketing capabilities approach

The purpose of this study is to compare SME family firms' and non-family firms' organisational prerequisites for international business operations. The main focus lies in the production and marketing capabilities needed for conducting international business. A quantitative study was conducted in Finland. A random sampling was done by utilising the database of the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK). A sample of 2,000 firms was gathered from the target population, EK database, which consisted of 16,000 firms. The answer rate for the study was 28%. All together, 555 firms answered the mail survey. Three hundred thirty three respondents were coming from family firms and 222 replies represented non-family firms. Logistic regression model together with t-tests and chi-square-tests were performed to test the hypotheses. As regards their organisational capabilities, family firms, in comparison to non-family firms, tended to internationalise their business operations by focusing their efforts on product and service quality as well as on competitive delivery times.