ABSTRACT
Family enterprises are often said to be the most common type of business in the world: they make a substantial contribution to virtually every economic sector. The family business research and advocacy organisation European Family Businesses (EFB) argued in 2012 that, depending on the definition of family business, on a world-wide basis family businesses contribute between 60 and 90 percent of non-government GDP, 50 to 80 percent of all private sector jobs, and represent 70 to 95 percent of all business entities. EFB further argues that family money funds 85 percent of all start-ups and that family firms are responsible for 75 percent of new job growth in the U.S. (2012). Yet assessing the size of family firms’ contribution is complicated because family firms are defined in many different ways. The U.S.-based Family Firm Institute (FFI) uses the broad definition of Miller et al. (2007), namely, that “family firms are those in which multiple members of the same family are involved as major owners or managers, either contemporaneously or over time.” Figures 2.1 and 2.2 were compiled using this definition. Figure 2.1 shows that many countries whose economies are infrequently discussed in the Western economic literature but are growing rapidly, such as Brazil, have an even larger percentage of family firms than countries in which the contribution of family firms is regularly discussed and debated, such as Europe and the U.S.
