What's so strong with family business?

Evidence from family business literature shows how internal family business implications such as goal and strategy formulation, innovation and professionalism of firms, resource management, culture and internationalization are still ignored or remain understudied (Zahra and Sharma, 2004). On the other hand, a deeper understanding of internal family business implications represents an opportunity for managers forwarding new managerial practices. In this scenario, family business literature has provided limited treatment of the relationship between management and customer. For this reason, the primary objective of this article will be to explore management−customer relations inside small/medium−sized family businesses focusing on the management perceptions of family business strengths. This paper will report on the results of a multiple case study that allowed us to relate what the firm thinks of itself to what the customer sees in it.