Alessandro Minichilli

Università commerciale Luigi Bocconi | Bocconi · Department of Management and Technology

Based on the socioemotional wealth approach and a sample of 3,904 subsidiary ownership choices made by 586 family firms, this study shows that family-managed firms (i.e., those family firms with a family member in a leadership position) prefer wholly owned subsidies over joint ventures when entering foreign markets. Family-managed firms are also mo...

Family owners differ from other types of owners due to the presence of socioemotional wealth (SEW) concerns. We take a closer look at this distinctive aspect by examining the impact of family control and influence dimension of SEW on the cash management choices of family firms, conceptualizing it as a mixed gamble choice. Our empirical analysis of...

This study examines the relation between financial reporting quality (FRQ) and eponymy, that is, naming a firm after the founder. We hypothesize that compared with noneponymous firms, eponymous firms have higher FRQ because of reputation concerns. Using a sample of 2,271 large Italian private firms, we document that eponymy is positively associated...

Studies on industrial districts tend to highlight the advantages for companies arising from the network of relationships among actors based on the sharing of a common history, culture and norms of behaviour. It has been recently shown that family businesses succeed in leveraging on the district effect only under certain size conditions. In this wor...

Against the backdrop of the current Covid-19 pandemic and the related world economic crisis, we reflect on the role of the business family as a pivotal resource in family firm crisis management. We discuss how business families respond to the pandemic outbreak and how some accomplish to turn challenges into opportunities and manage to emerge from t...

We draw on the agency and stewardship perspectives to determine whether and how the effect of family leadership on the entrepreneurial orientation-performance relationship in small and medium (SME) family firms is contingent on the main life cycle dimensions: firm size, generational stage, and board of directors’ engagement. The analyses of 284 Bel...

Manuscript type Empirical Research Question/Issue We depart from studies that separately explore CEOs’ and boards’ effects on firm performance. Instead, we examine the direct relationship between CEO power and firm performance, and how board monitoring, and most importantly, a change in the regulatory environment alter the relationship. As such, o...

Estimating difference-in-differences models on a comprehensive data set of Italian companies, we provide novel insights into the literature on political uncertainty and firm investment. We first establish that local political uncertainty leads to declining investment. Next, we show that family control neutralizes this effect: Family firms are more...

The interest in family business as a distinct academic research field has grown significantly in recent years, mostly motivated by the prevalence of family businesses worldwide and an increasing number of people and institutions acknowledging their importance and recognizing the need to gain a deeper understanding of this particular type of organiz...

Institutional theorists argue that strategic distinctiveness is constrained by institutional forces that induce firms to conform. Strategy scholars, for their part, have long advocated the benefits of distinctiveness as sources of competitive advantage. In straddling these positions, we argue that: a) firms vary in their institutional environments...

This article sketches the contours of an institution-based view of family ownership and control in large firms, with a focus on institutional roots, institutional relatedness, and institutional transitions. The institution-based view brings considerable continuity to family-firm research. It also offers significant novelty in helping resolve some p...

Building on a unique dataset with information on the nuclear structure of entrepreneurial families, we integrate leadership succession into a socioemotional wealth (SEW) logic to test the antecedents and consequences of primogeniture vis-à-vis second- or subsequent-born selection in family firm succession. Our findings suggest that appointing a fam...

Positive and negative views of family firms and their performance abound. Although there have been explanations for this divergence based on conditions of governance and context, the institutional environment has been less thoroughly explored as a source of these differences. We argue that the blend of family and market institutional logics in the...

Manuscript Type Empirical Research Question/Issue Family firms, as insider‐controlled companies, should be less likely to exhibit CEO turnover after poor performance and may thus promote enhanced focus on long‐term goals. However, when a non‐family CEO is in charge, the relatively limited empirical evidence is contrasting. Some studies find that o...

Extant literature on foreign entry increasingly recognizes firms' heterogeneity as a potential reason for inconsistency in results on the establishment mode choice, that is, whether and under which conditions firms should choose to enter a new country through a greenfield investment or an acquisition. Our study contributes to this debate by identif...

Empirical Although non-family managers (NFMs) can be expected to influence firm performance, this issue is largely under-investigated. In this study, we examine how diversity inside the non-family component of the top management team (non-family team, or NFT) influences family firm performance. More specifically, we investigate the performance effe...

Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: Considering the recent financial and economic crisis as a unique exogenous shock, our study investigates the financial performance of family-controlled firms in “steady-state” conditions as opposed to situations of severe economic distress. In addition, we focus our attention within family firms,...

Research at the nexus of strategic leadership and entrepreneurial contexts has been encouraging, but some of the more innovative and impactful questions remain underexplored. The purpose of the special issue was to provide a forum for works that build on the constraints, challenges, characteristics, and other salient elements of entrepreneurial set...

The literature on family firms is divided. Some scholars argue that the parochial socioemotional wealth goals of family actors detract from firm financial results; others maintain that family priorities of stewardship reduce agency costs. Scholars have attempted to reconcile these positions by focusing on the governance arrangements of these firms....

The need for studies of issues such as board-stakeholder dynamics, board members’ interactions, board leadership, and the decision-making culture within the boardroom is today widely acknowledged among management scholars who research corporate governance and boards of directors. While challenging the ‘black box’ approach that for so long has chara...

Boards of directors are key governance mechanisms in organizations and fulfill two main tasks: monitoring managers and firm performance, and providing advice and access to resources. In spite of a wealth of research much remains unknown about how boards attend to the two tasks. This study investigates whether organizational (firm profitability) and...

This paper extends the literature on CEO succession and financial performance by addressing corporate owners’ mixed motives and desires to protect their interest in being in business. We draw on a Socio-Emotional Wealth (SEW) perspective to investigate how the choice of one of three succession mechanisms – relay succession, “horse races” among inte...

We analyze whether gender interactions at the top of the corporate hierarchy affect corporate performance. Using a comprehensive data set of family-controlled firms in Italy, we find that female directors significantly improve the operating profitability of female-led companies. To mitigate endogeneity concerns, we assess executive transitions usin...

Family firms represent a globally dominant form of organization, yet they confront a steep challenge of finding and managing competent leaders. Sometimes, these leaders cannot be found within the owning family. To date we know little about the governance contexts under which non-family leaders thrive or founder. Guided by concepts from agency theor...

Family firms represent a globally dominant form of organization, yet they confront a steep challenge of finding and managing competent leaders. Sometimes, these leaders cannot be found within the owning family. To date we know little about the governance contexts under which non-family leaders thrive or founder. Guided by concepts from agency theor...

There has been much debate concerning the performance of family firms and the drivers of their performance. Some scholars have argued that family management is to blame when family firms go wrong; others claim that family management removes costly agency problems and encourages stewardship. Our thesis is that these disagreements can only be resolved...

This Invited Editorial introduces the Entrepreneurship Research Journal Special Issue focused on discussing entrepreneurship in Europe as a complex, multilevel phenomenon. Building on the evidence offered by the four articles and related commentaries in this issue, we discuss entrepreneurial phenomena at different micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. O...

The aim of this article is to investigate the differences between the careers of CEOs in family and nonfamily firms and the differences between the careers of family and nonfamily CEOs within family firms. Extant literature focuses on the family or nonfamily nature of firm leadership, especially around CEOs’ transitions. It predicts that agency con...

This paper addresses recent calls to narrow the micro-macro gap in management research (Bamberger, 2008), by incorporating a macro-level context variable (country) in exploring micro-level determinants of board effectiveness. Following the integrated model proposed by Forbes and Milliken (1999), we identify three board processes as micro-level dete...

This study asserts that the effects of board characteristics on firm innovation need to be evaluated with reference to contingency variables. A literature review suggests that relatively few studies adopt a contingency view when examining the outcomes of boards of directors. This study examines the influence on firm innovation of characteristics su...

Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: Boards' involvement in strategy is generally seen to be an indicator of board effectiveness, but less is known about the relationship between board leadership and strategy involvement, especially in small firms. This study analyzes board leadership from a team production perspective as an antecede...

A partir de la evidencia empírica que muchas empresas en el sector del lujo son empresas familiares, este artículo se centra en los diferentes paralelismos entre las características de las empresas familiares y aquellas propias de las compañías que operan en el sector del lujo, para llegar a la conclusión que la mayoría de los rasgos distintivos de...

The article explores the effects of the boards of directors construct on firm innovation from the theoretical perspective of decision making groups. It examines how the board of directors, which functions as a decision making group, influences a firm's conduct. The contingency view on boards and innovation is applied, with an argument about how a c...

Research Question/Issue: The level and effectiveness of investors’ protection is considered to foster financial markets development and economic growth. While previous studies focused on the relationship between the institutional setting and investors’ protection at country level, we investigate if ownership structure and board composition may sign...

This article examines the affect of family management on performance of the company. We examine how familiness can provide further insights beyond the classical demographic measures of top management teams (TMTs) in explaining variations in firms' financial performance. We combine arguments on the 'bright' and 'dark' side of family involvement in t...

Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: Recent dynamics in the institutional and market environment facilitated the propagation of equity incentive plans outside the US and the UK. This study sheds light on the reasons behind the diffusion of these plans in Italy, a country where companies are usually controlled by a blockholder and the...

This article examines the objective facets of CEO careers in family and non-family firms. Optimal matching analysis coupled with cluster analysis are used to show how careers are shaped by different factors in family and non-family firms. We have three central empirical concerns. First, are there distinct patterned trajectories in careers leading t...

Despite the increasing attention of management scholars to boards of directors, there is still scant evidence on the antecedents of board task performance. The lack of significant results seems to be due to some theoretical and methodological choices followed by scholars, i.e. the almost exclusive reliance on agency theory and the use of demographi...

Board evaluations can contribute to effective boards and improved corporate financial performance. The increasing interest in the practice of board evaluations, however, calls for a more systematic and careful approach than has been employed in the past. While most attention has primarily been focused on the content of board evaluations, this artic...

In this article we examine what affects the board of directors’ involvement in the advice to management, with emphasis on the influence of crises on the board advisory tasks performance. Based on a survey of 881 small Norwegian firms, we analyse responses from CEOs in order to determine whether and to what extent the board is actively involved in t...

The objective of this article is to provide ideas to help corporate boards function effectively, focusing on the inner workings of boards as well as the human side of governance. We spent a year making direct observations of TINE Group's corporate boardroom. Our observations showed the importance to boardroom dynamics of board leadership, individua...

In this article we position outside directors´ contribution in the corporate value chain. Our objective is to show how outside board members may contribute to value creation through knowledge and accountability. We will also provide tools for outside board members to make contributions. The directors are accountable to balance the interest of vario...

The attention to board of directors in small firms is increasing. Traditionally they have been considered to be passive and labeled paper boards or aunt boards. However, boards in small firms are now undergoing major changes. In this paper we test hypotheses of what makes boards active and allows them to contribute to value creation. Activity is se...