Which Competitive Strategy Fits Better to Different Family-Business Profiles?

This chapter belongs to the vein of research that analyses family firms from a configurational approach. This survey explores which combination of competitive strategy, environmental turbulence, family complexity, and family firm management and governance arrangements are present when firm performance is present. This research follows Le Breton-Miller and Miller's call to gain a better understanding of the interaction between competitive strategy, environmental conditions, and family firm features. Literature reports controversial results with regard to family-business strategic preferences and firm performance, and recent research shows that this relationship needs considering both industry and family context. This chapter analyses a sample of 129 Spanish SME-Family-Business that belong to the tourism industry. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, the authors find seven configurations to firm performance presence and one recipe for performance absence.