A Bibliometric Analysis of Takeover in Family Firms: Current Themes and Prospects

Abstract

This article highlights the crucial areas and recent dynamics of the takeover field in family firms and recommends avenues for further research. Employing a bibliometric examination, this study analyzes a sample of 63 studies from the Scopus database on acquisition involving family firms between 1997 and early 2021. The study also performed a systematic literature review of the most significant articles as revealed by the computation. We obtain the prominent authors based on citation analysis. We also find current themes and suggest future research avenues. Despite the worldwide prevalence of family firms, there is less study on the takeover of family firms. The results also show that most of the articles are based on the few most studied theories, such as agency theory, resource-based view and stewardship and stagnation perspective, and so on. The scant studies on the takeover of family firms center around acquisition decisions, determinants of acquisition, and acquisition outcomes, with relatively less attention on measuring non-economic goals, board structure, and generation of family members. Finally, the results indicate that very few studies have focused on cross-industry and cross-country to examine the effect of family ownership on takeover events.