Abstract
This study explores the role of external audiences in determining the importance of family firm brands and the relationship with firm performance. Drawing on text mining and social network analysis techniques, and considering the brand prevalence, diversity, and connectivity dimensions, we use the semantic brand score to measure the importance the media give to family firm brands. The analysis of a sample of 52,555 news articles published in 2017 about 63 Italian entrepreneurial families reveals that brand importance is positively associated with family firm revenues, and this relationship is stronger when there is identity match between the family and the firm. This study advances current literature by offering a rich and multifaceted perspective on how external audiences perceptions of the brand shape family firm performance.
1. Introduction
Studying the branding strategies of family firms is critical to understand how they communicate at the intersection of two idiosyncratic systems, the family and the business. Research studying family firm brands has mainly adopted an internal perspective, exploring how family firms strategically manage their brands (Botero, Thomas, Graves, & Fediuk, 2013; Micelotta & Raynard, 2011), and how strategic decisions influence brand relevance (Ardito, Messeni Petruzzelli, Pascucci, & Peruffo, 2019; Magistretti, Dell’Era, Frattini, & Messeni Petruzzelli, 2020; Mazzelli, De Massis, Messeni Petruzzelli, Del Giudice, & Khan, 2020). These studies show that branding strategies that communicate the family nature of the firm positively relate to firm performance (Zellweger, Kellermanns, Eddleston, & Memili, 2012), and that viewing the family “as a corporate brand” leads to higher sales growth. However, brand management concerns not only the party communicating or transmitting the informational cues pertaining to the brand but also the party receiving and processing such information (Brown, Dacin, Pratt, & Whetten, 2006; Shannon, 1948). Therefore, adopting an external perspective of family firm brands and the importance that external stakeholders attribute to them is crucial to advance our understanding of how these stakeholders can affect consumer choices that lead to the firm’s competitive advantage.
