Intangibles in the Internationalization of Family Firms: A Source of Competitive Advantage?

Intellectual capital has become a critical resource that can create value as well as sustain a competitive advantage for firms. Something similar happens with intangible resources; in fact both concepts show similarities and in practice are often used interchangeably. In this paper, intellectual capital is considered as a broad concept that comprises human, relational, organizational and technological resources. In the case of family businesses, firms have a specific stock of intangible resources due to the overlap between three different systems: family, business and ownership. This stock of intangible resources can also be a source of competitive advantage when it comes to international expansion. By combining these two aspects, this research paper seeks to identify differences in the human, organizational, relational and technological resources between family and nonfamily firms, and to analyze whether family firms' stock of intangible resources influences their international strategies. There are various motivations for analyzing these questions. The first lies in the social and economic importance of family firms internationally. The second relates to these companies' need for growth. And third, the particular characteristics of these companies are the source of the differences between their intangible resources and those of nonfamily firms. In our empirical study, we used a quantitative methodology. Our target group was firms - both family and nonfamily-belonging to the Spanish wine and olive oil sectors. Our primary source of information was managers and/or owners of wineries and olive oil factories, who completed an online self-administered questionnaire. We received 418 questionnaires from the respondents, what represented a response rate of 10.7%. Our results show that the stock of intangible resources in terms of human, organizational, relational and technological resources differs between family and nonfamily firms. Moreover, we find that family firms with a better stock of intangible resources show a greater export intensity.