title: 

When a globalniche strategy is not enough to spur family firm internationalization: the roleof external and internal contexts. 

Abstract

We integrate the mixed gamble perspective with the dynamic institution-based view to investigate how the speed of institutional reforms and reversals in transition economies affects family versus nonfamily firms’ scale of internationalization over time. While research has focused on family firms’ reluctance to pursue strategic mixed gambles that endanger their socio-emotional wealth, we extend the analysis to explore how the institutional environment leads to growth or withdrawal from internationalization once they have taken the gamble to venture abroad. Additionally, while research demonstrates that performance aspirations alter the mixed gamble, we propose that the domestic speed of pro-market reforms and reversals will modify how performance aspirations affect family versus nonfamily firms’ scale of internationalization over time. We validate our framework on 482 Chinese firms during 2004-2009.