Title: Family business: institutional framework and entrepreneurial power

Authors: Piero Mastroberardino, Claudio Nigro, Giuseppe Calabrese, Flora Cortese, Gemma Carolillo

Addresses: Faculty of Economics, Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Aziendali, Giuridiche, Merceologiche e Geografiche, Foggia University, Via Caggese, n.1 – 71100 Foggia, Italy. ' Faculty of Economics, Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Aziendali, Giuridiche, Merceologiche e Geografiche, Foggia University, Via Caggese, n.1 – 71100 Foggia, Italy. ' Faculty of Economics, Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Aziendali, Giuridiche, Merceologiche e Geografiche, Foggia University, Via Caggese, n.1 – 71100 Foggia, Italy. ' Faculty of Economics, Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Aziendali, Giuridiche, Merceologiche e Geografiche, Foggia University, Via Caggese, n.1 – 71100 Foggia, Italy. ' Faculty of Economics, Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Aziendali, Giuridiche, Merceologiche e Geografiche, Foggia University, Via Caggese, n.1 – 71100 Foggia, Italy

Abstract: This paper refers to family business as a useful theme in order to explore some critical issues related to the firm seen as an organisational entity. It starts with a review of some consolidated defining approaches to family business, placing them within the widest currents of business management and social sciences branches, and then it adds some reflections in the light of the |political| and new-institutionalist models. In the end, we here propose a research plan on family business that could be tested in the future in order to verify some research hypotheses based on the combination of the most significant political and new institutionalist assumptions.

Keywords: family business; entrepreneurial power; new institutionalism; theories of the firm; entrepreneurship; family firms.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGSB.2009.032263

International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business, 2009 Vol.3 No.4, pp.463 - 484

Received: 13 May 2009
Accepted: 05 Dec 2009
Published online: 18 Mar 2010 *

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