Family Firms and Local Roots - Implications on Economic Performance and Corporate Social Responsibility

This book pursues an interdisciplinary approach to studying family firms as a particular type of business strongly embedded in the territories in which they are located. Featuring an in-depth analysis of original research, the book employs both theoretical and empirical approaches to explore family firms and their relationships with their home territories. The book shows that family firms have unique bonds with their local areas, and these bonds profoundly shape their decision-making and outcomes.
The book addresses two research questions, namely, how the connections between family firms and their home territories originate and develop, and how they influence firms' economic performance and their corporate social responsibility initiatives. Uniquely, it seeks to develop an integrated framework that brings together family firms, local contexts, and places while also presenting new empirical evidence of relevance to scholars, managers, and policymakers alike. In addition, the book responds to the need for a greater understanding of what anchors entrepreneurial families to their home territories and the conditioning effect of local roots on such firms' behavior.

Stefano Amato is Assistant Professor at the University of Trento, Italy. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pisa (Italy), and has been a visiting Ph.D. candidate at Sheikh Saoud bin Khalid Al-Qassimi Chair in Family Business at the American University of Sharjah (UAE), and at the Centre for Family Entrepreneurship and Ownership (CeFEO) of Jönköping International Business School (Sweden). He has been postdoc at IMT School for Advanced Studies in Lucca, Italy. His main research interest is the performance and growth patterns of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and family businesses, focusing on the firm's interplay with territories and places.
Alessia Patuelli is a Lecturer at Northumbria University's Amsterdam Campus. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor of Management at IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ferrara and the University of Florence, Italy. She received her PhD in Business Administration and Management from the University of Pisa, Italy. Her current research interests are mainly in family businesses, corporate social responsibility, sustainable development goals, using qualitative and interdisciplinary approaches at the intersection of management and complex networks, big data, and machine learning.