This study examines how large family firms react to a macroeconomic shock in terms of their internationalization depth and breadth. Building on new internalization theory and acknowledging the dysfunctional manifestations of bifurcation bias in large family-owned MNEs, we argue that an unexpected shock induces family firms to recombine their family firm-specific resources with their thus far underutilized or unequally treated nonfamily resources. This recombination allows most family firms to economize on bifurcation bias and leverage their resources as firm-specific advantages (FSAs) resulting in an increased depth and breadth of internationalization post shock (while some of them may continue to suffer from bifurcation bias). Testing our theory on a panel dataset incorporating large family-owned (compared to nonfamily-owned) MNEs headquartered in Germany before and after the global financial crisis lends support to our theory. We discuss how our study contributes to new internalization theory, to the broader IB literature on MNEs’ unexpected shock response, and to family firm internationalization research.

本研究从国际化深度和广度的角度考察了大型家族企业如何应对宏观经济冲击。基于新的内部化理论并承认大型家族式跨国公司中分叉偏差的功能失调表现，我们认为，意外冲击会促使家族企业将其家族企业特定资源与迄今为止未充分利用或未得到平等对待的非家族资源重新组合。这种重组使大多数家族企业能够减少分叉偏差，并将其资源作为公司特定优势 (FSA)，从而在冲击后增加国际化的深度和广度（而其中一些可能会继续遭受分叉偏差的影响）。在包含全球金融危机前后总部位于德国的大型家族企业（与非家族企业相比）的面板数据集上测试我们的理论，为我们的理论提供了支持。我们讨论了我们的研究如何为新的内部化理论、关于跨国公司意外冲击反应的更广泛的 IB 文献以及家族企业国际化研究做出贡献。