Are family firms’ export relationships more persistent?

Abstract

This paper examines the persistence of family firms’ international relationships. We theoretically argue how socioemotional wealth’s gains and losses balancing process supported by network closure allows family firms to develop more persistent relationships with their foreign partners than their non-family counterparts. Our study empirically tests this hypothesis and confirms that export relationship survival is higher in family firms than in their non-family counterparts. We further show that this difference is magnified during economic crises or when operating in culturally distant markets.