Does family involvement foster or hinder firm performance? The missing role of family-based branding strategies

• Family-based branding strategies are expression of family involvement’s “dynamic capability.”
• Family-based branding strategies are considered at corporate and product levels.
• Family involvement in management improves ROS.
• Family involvement in management combined to family corporate brand improves sales.

Considering family involvement exclusively through “demographic criteria” does not allow to properly catching the effects of this unique resource on family firms performance. The aim of this article is to address this gap by considering mechanisms through which family involvement in management might be turned into a dynamic capability for the family firm. The main focus is on family-based branding strategies (at corporate and product levels) as ways to reach sustained competitive advantage by valorizing the “family nature” of the firm. The main hypotheses are tested, through moderated multiple regressions, on a sample of 114 private family firms operating in the wine industry, during the period 2005–2010. Our main finding suggests that family firms combining family involvement in management to branding strategies communicating the family (e.g., family history, values, and identity) as a corporate brand show higher rates of sales growth. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed.