An overview of family business. Profiles, definitions and the main challenges of the business life-cycle -- Professionalization and managerialization in family firms: A still open issue -- The survival of family businesses: The challenge of succession -- The growth of family businesses: the path to internationalization -- Investment decisions in listed family firms: risk aversion and emo-tional attachment -- Governing family business challenges. A research map -- Learning financial language to face on-going challenges. The case of Greenlife -- Professionalization and managerialization: original levers from Mo-lino Nicoli spa -- Beyond the founder. Which conditions can favor or hinder the profes-sionalization of family firms? -- Internationalization in family businesses. The case of Mamagra -- Family ownership and investment decisions. An empirical analysis on the role of board monitoring and CEO emotional attachment -- Discussing and concluding remarks.

This book addresses a selection of major topics in family businesses, namely ‘managerialization’ and ‘professionalization’, succession, internationalization, access to financial markets, and how governance and control systems can help family firms respond to common problems inherent in the business. Written by prominent experts, the respective chapters highlight the interactions between these topics in order to develop a systems view of the distinctive challenges, and of the potential roles that governance and control systems can play in these contexts. The book is divided into two main parts, the first of which reviews the current literature and develops a comprehensive theoretical framework. Based on these theoretical insights, the second part then interprets and discusses the empirical evidence, including case studies on family-run firms in Italy. .