Abstract
We studied the effect of family control on the characteristics of small- and medium-sized enterprises located in the Northern Italian province of Bergamo. The analysis included aspects such as demographic characteristics, cost and productivity of labour, financial ratios, and the performance of 745 SMEs. Familycontrolled firms emerged as a predominant organizational type in almost all the industries and a number of relevant differences were found between family-controlled and non-family firms. In sum, familycontrolled firms in our sample outperformed their nonfamily counterparts in terms of return on sales, return on equity and return on assets. © 2012 Cassia et al.