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COVID-19 Experienced by Small and Medium-sized Family Businesses and Future Growth Prospects: Results from A Pilot Study
Fiorella Pia Salvatore, Michele Milone
Pages - 54 - 70     |    Revised - 31-05-2023     |    Published - 30-06-2023
Volume - 14   Issue - 2    |    Publication Date - June 2023  Table of Contents
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KEYWORDS
Family Business, COVID-19, Growth Drivers, Pilot Study.
ABSTRACT
The challenges that small and medium-sized family businesses face today are diverse and made even more serious by the current period of health emergency. Family businesses represent the “backbone” of industrial systems and they do not constitute a critical issue but rather they have organizational flexibility and decision-making speed that are difficult to find in more structured companies. The main aim of this study is to highlight the main characteristics of individual family businesses: business longevity, organizational structure, accounting characteristics, the mood of relationships experienced by business employees, their willingness to internationalize and to find out if these features have changed due to COVID-19. After a theoretical investigation of the “family business” construct, the geographical context of the survey will be defined. The main method was an online interview among family businesses. The results were interesting as the pilot study found that even in a limited geographical area of Southern Italy and in a period of generalized crisis, family businesses not only continue to capitalize, but also continue to launch more and more internationalization processes, confirming them as the engine of entrepreneurial development.
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Dr. Fiorella Pia Salvatore
Department of Economics, University of Foggia, Foggia, 71121 - Italy
fiorellapia.salvatore@unifg.it
Dr. Michele Milone
Department of Economics, University of Foggia, Foggia, 71121 - Italy


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