The internationalisation of Spanish family firms through business groups: Factors affecting the profitability, and the moderating effect of the family nature of the Spanish business

Spanish family businesses have undertaken a major process of internationalisation, creating business groups with companies in emerging countries, such as Morocco. Morocco is the principal destination for Spanish investment in Africa. This paper analyses the impact of factors related to ownership, management and organisational culture on the performance of business groups created by Spanish and Moroccan companies. Therefore we also examine the possible moderating effect of the family nature of the Spanish company. In total, 252 business groups are analysed, of which 124 were created by Spanish family firms and 128 by Spanish non-family firms. The information was obtained through a survey conducted in 2013. The results, obtained by linear regression, show that performance, measured by profitability, is enhanced when there is a higher proportion of ownership by the Spanish family business, when there is a larger number of Moroccan managers, when the management approach is results-oriented and when decision taking is centralised. Moreover, the family nature of the Spanish company has a moderating effect on the relationship between business group profitability and two of the variables analysed, namely the percentage of ownership and the centralisation of decision taking. The results of this study could help to clarify an issue of some significance in professional and academic circles. Both owners and managers of family businesses can use these research findings to better understand how certain characteristics of business group management could affect their performance and the success of the internationalisation process