How family firm characteristics affect internationalization of Chinese family SMEs

Abstract This study investigates the effect of family characteristics on the internationalization activities ofChinese familysmall and medium-sizedenterprises (SMEs)using a socioemotional wealth perspective. We suggest that family ownership negatively affects international expansion. Results using a sample of 1542 Chinese family SMEs support our hypothesis that there is a negative relationship between family ownership and international activities. Due to mixed findings in previous studies, we not only focus on both export intensity and export propensity, but also introduce family firm characteristics (i.e., presence of founder CEOs and family succession intention) as moderators. We argue that these moderators capture a temporal aspect of socioemotional wealth (SEW) and find that they strengthen the negative relationshi