The internationalisation of Spanish family firms through business groups: Factors affecting the profitability, and the moderating effect of the family nature of the Spanish business

Spanish family businesses have undertaken a major process of internationalisation, creating business groups with companies in emerging countries, such as Morocco. Morocco is the principal destination for Spanish investment in Africa. This paper analyses the impact of factors related to ownership, management and organisational culture on the performance of business groups created by Spanish and Moroccan companies. Therefore we also examine the possible moderating effect of the family nature of the Spanish company. In total, 252 business groups are analysed, of which 124 were created by Spanish family firms and 128 by Spanish non-family firms. The information was obtained through a survey conducted in 2013.