Does family business excel in firm performance? An institution-based view

We offer an institution-based view to the classic inquiry on the relationship between family business and firm performance, which has been dominated by traditional theories such as agency theory and the resource-based view. Specifically, we argue that institutions define family business characteristics such as ownership concentration and family management, and also affect the performance of family business. Our research contributes to a reconciliation of prior inconsistent findings and calls further attention to the embedded nature of family business in institutions. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.