Internationalisation of family small and medium sized enterprises: the role of stewardship orientation, family commitment culture and top management team

The purpose of this paper is to determine how aspects of organisational culture, typical to family businesses, influence internationalisation. Proposing that stewardship orientation, family commitment culture and top management team related factors influence internationalisation; we empirically examine 80 internationalising family SMEs (FSMEs) from the manufacturing sector in Finland. Variance based structural equation modelling (PLS) shows that family commitment culture is negatively associated with the degree of internationalisation. On the other hand strategically flexible top management teams with industry experience in FSMEs are positively associated with the degree of internationalisation. Contributing to an understanding of the internationalisation of family businesses, the findings suggest that family commitment culture and stewardship orientation, often associated with an inward orientation, may operate against internationalisation, however when coupled with the strategic flexibility of the top management team, we found stewardship orientation to positively impact internationalisation suggesting that it provides an outward orientation. Implications for practice are advanced.