As long as you talk about me: The importance of family firm brands and the contingent role of family-firm identity
This research addresses the impact of external brand perceptions on family firm performance, offering incremental insights into identity matching.
The study examined how media coverage of family firm brands affects firm revenues, finding a positive association that strengthens when family and firm identities align, with analysis of 52,555 news articles on 63 Italian families.
This study explores the role of external audiences in determining the importance of family firm brands and the relationship with firm performance. Drawing on text mining and social network analysis techniques, and considering the brand prevalence, diversity, and connectivity dimensions, we use the semantic brand score to measure the importance the media give to family firm brands. The analysis of a sample of 52,555 news articles published in 2017 about 63 Italian entrepreneurial families reveals that brand importance is positively associated with family firm revenues, and this relationship is stronger when there is identity match between the family and the firm. This study advances current literature by offering a rich and multifaceted perspective on how external audiences perceptions of the brand shape family firm performance.