A qualitative research on growth and internationalization in family businesses

Family businesses have played an important role in the development of civilization as well as the economy. Family-controlled enterprises have been among the driving forces of the economic development process since the early stages of industrialization. 95% of enterprises in Turkey consists of a family business and the majority of them are SMEs. Growth and internationalization are an important step for SMEs. the family business which has a large share of over Turkey's economy seems to be important for the family as well as for society. The number of companies that see the third generation of the family businesses that make up the majority of the Turkish economy is very low. Short life span may be due to the fact that they cannot follow correct growth strategies. in this thesis, it is envisaged that the lack of international expansion is a reason not to live longevity. As a result of the literature review, it has been observed that in recent years the desire of family enterprises to take part in the international arena has increased. However, in the literature, the researcher's resources and abilities are viewed through the sources that are accessible; it is thought that the relationship between the concepts of growth and internationalization of family enterprises cannot be found and it will contribute to the literature as it reveals the context of Turkey in terms of method and provides a comparative analysis. In this study, 14 family enterprises, including local and International, were selected as judgemental. The aim of the local and international selection of enterprises is to reveal the differences between the two if there are differences in the view of growth and internationalization issues. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with businesses. Then the themes and codes were created. The interviews were analysed with the qualitative research program of MAXQDA 2018. The analysis consists of three main themes. The first dimension is to learn the perspectives of local and international family businesses on the family business identity. in the second dimension, it is aimed to learn how local and international businesses are strategies for growth and their attitudes towards growth. In the third dimension, it is aimed to learn how the international family businesses only take the decision of internationalization, the ways in which they are internationalized and the obstacles they face. The most basic and striking findings of the research; - Even if family companies define themselves as "family business", they have different meanings and this leads to the existence of different identities. - Despite the differences in the initial findings, the perceptions of growth and internationalization were similar. - In addition, it is seen that family businesses prefer the most network approach model from internationalization theories by entering international markets.