Synopsis:

This contribution indicates how comparative research on family firms can inform discussions of “diversity of capitalism”. The particular topic of interest here is personalization, that is, imparting to consumers the sentiment of dealing with specific real people rather than an impersonal entity. The analysis uses the example of the German family firm Hipp to illustrate personalization of the business. It also contextualizes the Hipp case by comparing Hipp with a set of 50 multigenerational German family firms that have been in existence for over a century. We follow up with a further comparison of US and German firms to shed light on national differences in the multigenerational exploitation of personalization advantages by family firms.