Thomas Wittig aims at gaining additional insights into the crisis and turnaround process of SMEs, investigating both, the turnaround success and the impact of turnaround on the family role in family firms. Based on a specifically developed integrated conceptual turnaround model, the author...

CEO succession represents a challenge for many companies. The leadership style of the new CEO impacts employees’ attitudes which, in turn, might be biased by the comparison employees make with their previous CEO. Cristina Pratelli investigates how and why leadership style (dis)similarity...

Christoph Rose provides a broader differentiation of the perspective on family-owned companies. In contrast to several studies that merely discuss family-owned companies and non-family companies, his analysis is based on family influence, so the dominating heterogeneity of family-owned companies...

Margarete Rosina investigates whether it makes sense for family firms to communicate their family firm status to consumers. To do so, she conducts two experimental studies using a sample of 349 consumers. Using a branding perspective, the first study looks at whether consumers perceive family...

Sandra Wolf develops a better understanding of the importance of clearly communicating family influence. She examines the efficacy of brand elements that signal family influence and that help external stakeholders to identify a family firm. An experiment with 543 students in Germany and...

Jörg Schäfer investigates the influence of family firm specific decision rationales based on socioemotional wealth on vertical and horizontal pay ranges in family firms. Building on a primary data set of over 200 family firms in Germany and applying multiple regression analysis techniques, as...

Identification of three key topics and research gaps in the literature on VBM in Mittelstand -- Framework for the evaluation of the role of VBM in Mittelstand -- Use of management tools in strategic decision-making -- Specific objectives and nuances in the overall target course -- Understanding...

Goal Cascade of Family Enterprise´s Strategy -- Family Enterprises as Research Objects -- Theoretical Side: Results, Model Building and Discussion -- The Practical Side: Pragmatic-Normative Implications.