Family firms, productivity and input specificity: An empirical assessment of Italian firms’ sourcing

This paper provides an empirical assessment of Italian firms’ sourcing. Combining the international economics literature on global sourcing with the family business and international business literature on family firms (FFs)’ internationalization, we build a comprehensive framework in which sourcing is shaped by location (domestic versus foreign sourcing) and ownership (integration versus outsourcing) decisions. Relying on a new firm-level, cross-sectional dataset on a stratified sample of Italian manufacturing firms, we address the relationship between sourcing and various firm-level features. Our probit and multinomial probit estimates highlight family presence in ownership and control, total factor productivity and reliance on specific inputs as the main drivers of sourcing. While playing little role in shaping the ownership decision, both FF status and total factor productivity affect location choices, fostering domestic and foreign sourcing, respectively. Conversely, reliance on specific inputs is key in orienting the ownership decision, promoting integration over outsourcing. Our study contributes to the international economics literature on global sourcing by studying factors other than productivity and input specificity that affect input procurement; moreover, it contributes to the family business and international business literature on FFs’ internationalization by taking a supply-side perspective and investigating sourcing through the interplay between location and ownership choices.