Is blood thicker than water? Exploring the impact of family firms’ familial social relations with other firms within their industries

Abstract

The benefits or drawbacks of family social capital for family firm performance are hotly debated among scholars. Most of the debate adopts an internal view of family social capital and focuses on familial relations taking place within the boundaries of the family firm or the family business group. However, overlooked in this debate is the role of potentially valuable family bonds held with family members outside the family firm and the family business group’s boundaries—family members working for other firms without ownership connections. We strive to advance this debate by placing the focus on a new category of family social capital originating from social relations with family members working in other firms in the same industry. In so doing, we theoretically and empirically tease out how the number of ties with family members located in other independent firms within the boundaries of a given industry affects family firms’ performance. We also account for the moderating effect on this baseline relationship of the number of ties with members of other firms not bearing a family connection. In so doing, we add new insights to address the paradox among family firm studies about why seemingly vital social relations only sometimes matter for family firm performance.