What Makes Latin American Family Firms Different? Moving Beyond Cross-Cultural Comparisons

Abstract

This editorial introduces the special issue on “Family Business in Latin America”. We argue that the cultural context plays an important role as a source of heterogeneity of family firms. Thus, in this introductory piece, we describe the Latin American cultural context and explain how and why it creates a unique environment that requires family firms to behave differently. We build on past research as well as the four articles published in this special issue. The goal is to stimulate further research on Latin American family firms, what makes them unique, and what we can learn from this context that may be useful in other cultural environments.

Keywords: LATAM, Heterogeneity, Family Business Differences, Cultural Context.