After decades of silence and discretion, family firms are attracting the interest of researchers and media alike. The market capitalisation collapse of renown public giants -and dozens of other highly praised companies—has triggered a renewed interest in these family-owned companies who seem to transcend the centuries, survive storms and grow ever stronger. This begs the question: how do they do it? In an attempt to pinpoint their characteristic strengths, we asked ourselves: could any of these learnings apply to other types of companies? By the same token we also asked: are there any red flags which family firms should be paying attention to?

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