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Multinational Family Firms’ Internationalization Depth And Breadth Following The Global Financial Crisis, Sebastian P. L. Fourné, Miriam Zschoche, Christian Schwens, Reddi Kotha

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines how large family firms react to a macroeconomic shock in terms of their internationalization depth and breadth. Building on new internalization theory and acknowledging the dysfunctional manifestations of bifurcation bias in large family-owned MNEs, we argue that an unexpected shock induces family firms to recombine their family firm-specific resources with their thus far underutilized or unequally treated nonfamily resources. This recombination allows most family firms to economize on bifurcation bias and leverage their resources as firm-specific advantages (FSAs) resulting in an increased depth and breadth of internationalization post shock (while some of them may continue to suffer …