Sustainability in family firms: a structured literature review

Purpose – The family firm is a type of firm in which family owners “exercise substantial influence on the firm's affairs”. Family businesses dominate the economic landscape. According to the latest statistics from the Family Firm Institute, family firms account for two thirds of all businesses around the world, generate around 70-90 percent of annual global GDP, and create 50-80 percent of jobs in the majority of countries worldwide. Sustainability practices are critical for family firms, as they relate directly to the continuity of the business and relationships with important stakeholders, such as members of the local community. evertheless, not all family firms wish to adopt sustainability practices. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse the main areas of research related to sustainability practices in family firms. The study proposed here is part of an ongoing research project in the field of family business studies and is also part of a broader interdisciplinary investigation. Design/methodology/approach - In order to identify the topics dealt with and the investigation methods used, a structured literature review (SLR) was carried out. Specifically, 87 international contributions on the selected SCOPUS database were analysed. Originality/value - This paper stems from the need to provide an overview of varied literature on the topic in order to understand the different approaches to sustainability that family businesses have. The literature review shows that the gaps in knowledge about family businesses' (FF) approach to socially responsible initiatives persist. FFs present unique perspectives on socially responsible behaviour, as they recognise an undoubted priority to actions related to emotions and goals such as reputation, identity, image and environmental performance. Keywords – Family firms, sustainability, Corporate social responsibility Paper type - Literature review Nature of proposed paper - Academic Research Paper