Management control in family firms: a guest editorial

[Extract] Family firms have received significantly higher levels of attention in business and management research in recent years (e.g., Daspit et al. 2017; Gedajlovic et al. 2012; Sharma 2017). Some scholars even report on an “explosive growth of interest in family business studies in the past decade” (Sharma et al. 2017, p. 316). Accounting research has been somewhat slower in examining the specifics of family firms. From a life-cycle perspective, accounting research on family firms is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, recent studies underpin that when it comes to accounting—and in particular, to management accounting and control—family firms display some distinctive features. For instance, recent reviews on accounting in family firms note that they show lower levels of formalization of accounting and control practices, exhibit specific and additional roles of accounting and control practices, and differ from non-family firms in important accounting choices such as earnings management (Helsen et al. 2017; Prencipe et al. 2014; Salvato and Moores 2010; Senftlechner and Hiebl 2015; Songini et al. 2013).