Towards a better understanding of family business groups from a cross-cultural perspective

Around the world, some of the largest firms in many countries are controlled by family business groups such as Fiat in Italy, Ford in the US, Hutchison Whampoa in Hong Kong, Samsung in South Korea and many others. Further, many family groups have a long history. Although family business groups are a significant and long standing phenomenon in most parts of the world, their resilience to globalization in their use of different governance structures and relational capabilities have received little attention from a cross-cultural perspective. Drawing on our previous work, the study provides a theoretical framework to classify family business groups’ key traits on the basis of their etic/emic distinction from a cross-cultural perspective

Innovation, institutions and cultures: Exploring the European context

The aim of this explorative study is to provide a systematic mapping of the most innovative firms in Europe, in order to identify their distinctive local innovation dynamics in terms of geographical, sectoral and cultural distribution. The research seeks to assess whether innovation performance in Europe is “culture-specific”. From the findings, it emerges that the most innovative clusters are the Nordic Cluster, the Anglo Cluster and the Germanic Cluster. This supports the idea that innovation performance is indeed “culture-specific”

Adaptive Body Gesture Representation for Automatic Emotion Recognition

We present a computational model and a system for the automated recognition of emotions starting from full-body movement. Three-dimensional motion data of full-body movements are obtained either from professional optical motion-capture systems (Qualisys) or from low-cost RGB-D sensors (Kinect and Kinect2). A number of features are then automatically extracted at different levels, from kinematics of a single joint to more global expressive features inspired by psychology and humanistic theories (e.g., contraction index, fluidity, and impulsiveness). An abstraction layer based on dictionary learning further processes these movement features to increase the model generality and to deal with intraclass variability, noise, and incomplete information characterizing emotion expression in human movement. The resulting feature vector is the input for a classifier performing real-time automatic emotion recognition based on linear support vector machines. The recognition performance of the proposed model is presented and discussed, including the tradeoff between precision of the tracking measures (we compare the Kinect RGB-D sensor and the Qualisys motion-capture system) versus dimension of the training dataset. The resulting model and system have been successfully applied in the development of serious games for helping autistic children learn to recognize and express emotions by means of their full-body movement

“Can you tell me about the future?” A narrative of the goal-setting process in family business

By relying on the taxonomy introduced by Kotlar and De Massis (2013), the present study proposes to investigate the dynamics and the set of goals perceived by the family members strategic for the future growth of their family business. Using an interview approach, the researchers recorded the professional stories of 15 family firm owners and managers. Through the interpretation of the narrative material emerged that the interviewees never mentioned the role that family-centred non-economic goals (i.e., ‘family harmony’, the ‘family social status’ and ‘the family identity’) plays in the performance of the family firms. Contrary, non-family non-economic goals, such as innovation and internationalisation, are considered two keys growth drivers. In particular, if both innovation and internationalisation have equal importance amongst the current goals, internationalisation assumes a greater importance in relation to the future goals of growth.   Keywords: Goal setting process; Family business; Growth Strategy; Narrative analysi

The Internationalization of a Family Business Group: The Ownership, the Leadership and the importance of the Socio-Emotional Wealth Dimensions

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide some illustrative evidence to understand the distinctive forms of governance implemented by a well-established family business group (FBG) and to highlight the relative importance given to the different dimensions of socio-emotional wealth (SEW) during the internationalization process. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on multi-level and longitudinal data, the research provides in-depth insights into how the affiliated firms are linked to the focal firm, how the founding family in a large FBG organizes the top leadership roles spanning multiple countries and whether the inter-organizational and inter-personal networks changes over time and which are the most important items representing the SEW dimensions. Findings From the findings, it emerges that family ownership, family leadership and the presence of trusted people as pivotal actors in the FBG’s internationalization process. Originality/value The originality of the research stems from its contribution because despite providing illustrative evidence based on a single case-study, the findings offer additional insights over the importance of and the instrumental role played by SEW preservation as a perspective to explain FBGs’ internationalization

Embracing a new perspective on the governance of family business groups: A cross-cultural perspective

Family Business Groups (FBGs) are a significant and long-standing phenomenon widespread around the world. Their governance mechanisms have previously been investigated at firm-level and country-level. However, little attention has been paid at cluster-level of analysis by considering the differences in national culture. Based on a sample of 117 publications, this article provides a systematic literature review on the FBGs' governance mechanisms by taking a broad perspective in the selection process of the publications. There is evidence from the findings that supports the idea of variations of the governance mechanisms between different cultural clusters. Additionally, core aspects related to the resilience of these mechanisms within the cultural clusters are identified. Our research provides support to the argument that governance mechanisms across countries tend to be culturally embedded and cluster-dependent

Expression of NOTCH1 in thyroid cancer is mostly restricted to papillary carcinoma

The NOTCH signaling is an evolutionarily conserved signaling pathway that regulates cell-cell interactions. NOTCH family members play a fundamental role in a variety of processes during development in particular in cell fate decisions. As other crucial factors during embryogenesis, NOTCH signaling is aberrantly reactivated in cancer where it has been linked to context-dependent effects. In thyroid cancer, NOTCH1 expression has been associated to aggressive features even if its in vivo expression within the entire spectrum of thyroid tumors has not definitively established. A series of 106 thyroid specimens including non-neoplastic lesions, benign and malignant tumors of common and rare histotypes, were investigated by immunohistochemistry to assess NOTCH1 expression. Extent of positivity and protein localization were investigated and correlated with clinical and morphological parameters. NOTCH1 positivity was predominantly associated with papillary carcinomas and only occasionally found in follicular carcinomas. Poorly differentiated and undifferentiated thyroid carcinomas showed only a partial positivity. NOTCH1 expression pattern also seemed differently distributed according to histotype. Our data confirm a role of NOTCH1 in thyroid cancer and highlight for the first time the specific involvement of this pathway in papillary carcinomas. Our data also indicate that other thyroid malignancies do not rely on NOTCH1 signaling for development and progression

How do family firms grow? The strategic goals of innovation and internationalization

The aim of the paper is to identify the main strategic goals that are deemed as strategic by the owner/managers for the future growth of a family firm, and to assess how innovation ad internationalisation are included in such goals. By relying on 15 in-depth interviews with family firms’ key informants (i.e. family firms’ owners, managers and professionals), the study makes an original contribution that is significant and relevant both from a theoretical and a methodological perspective. In relation to the former, it provides a comprehensive review of the main family business goal setting models in order to identify the relevant categories used to classify the goals. Additionally, differently from extant research the study outlines the pivotal importance of innovation and internationalization as strategic goals for family firms’ growth. In relation to the latter, by relying on a narrative approach, the study provides a finer-grained understanding of how internationalization and innovation are conceived with respect to traditional characteristics of the family firms