Portfolio location-related decisions: do proximities matter?

Purpose This paper aims to examine the relationships between how family owners perceive different aspects of proximity to their territory of origin and the location-related decisions of family business portfolios. Design/methodology/approach By using the data collected from 112 family business portfolios (FBP), the authors carry out an empirical analysis to test the proposed hypotheses. The results are robust across a battery of robustness analyses performed by the authors. Findings The analysis reveals a heterogeneous relationship between the different dimensions of proximity and the maintenance and location of portfolio business units. Specifically, we reveal that entrepreneurial families’ social and institutional proximities to their founding territory have a positive influence on their decisions related to investing and maintaining their business portfolio. Originality/value These findings open the black box of how business decisions are affected by how business owners perceive their contexts, providing new insights into how corporate decisions in understudied business organisations, business groups, are shaped by the ownership’s proximity to territories.