Family businesses are experiencing a revival in the German economy. In the face of the challenges of globalization and the ongoing relocation of production facilities, home base oriented... Show moreFamily businesses are experiencing a revival in the German economy. In the face of the challenges of globalization and the ongoing relocation of production facilities, home base oriented enterprises meet with increasing attention and gain in importance. Family-owned enterprises have indeed been neglected in the past, a fact which shows clearly also in business economics research. But this was also due to the family businesses, or the owner families, respectively, failing to open up. In the present paper, the author succeeded in winning high-ranking representatives of producing family businesses as interview partners. The discussions and the subsequent analyses both of the topics discussed and of the theoretical context serve to provide a new and intriguing picture of family-owned enterprises on their international growth path to world market leaders. Show less
