Title: A miss is as good as a mile? The desire-belief-opportunity framework and a typology of family firms in internationalisation

Authors: Bin Liu; David Ahlstrom

Addresses: Department of MBA Center, School of Management, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China ' Lee Shau Kee School of Business and Administration, Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Ho Man Tin, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR

Abstract: While family firms (FFs) play a key role in cross-border trade and investment, the question of whether they internationalise more (or less) compared to non-FFs remains debatable. This study holds that there are also substantial within-FFs differences and thus proposes a typology of FFs based on the desire-belief-opportunity (DBO) framework in the analytical sociology literature. Specifically, three ideal types of FFs are theorised and defined, along with propositions related to their internationalisation. This framework should introduce nuanced heterogeneous dynamics that originate from FFs' configuration pathways, enriching our understanding of their heterogeneities. It thus offers a new approach to reconcile the inconsistent predictions of internationalisation in the family business literature while complementing the conceptualisation of socioemotional wealth (SEW) from micro-foundations of social mechanisms. Our typology further calls for various research approaches to account for the identified equifinality issue and presents potential extensions for agency theory.

Keywords: family firm; typology; desire-belief-opportunity framework; heterogeneity; internationalisation.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2026.155339

European Journal of International Management, 2026 Vol.29 No.4, pp.561 - 584

Received: 05 Nov 2024
Accepted: 14 Mar 2025
Published online: 30 Jul 2026 *

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