Financial accounting in family business: a systematic literature review and future research agenda

Academic researchers have recently recognised the impact of family firms’ idiosyncrasies and characteristics on financial accounting practices, and identified distinctions between family and non-family businesses. However, this issue still needs appropriate systematisation and discussion. It is important to understand how family businesses’ features shape financial accounting phenomena, but the most authoritative review on the topic dates back more than 10 years. We therefore conducted a systematic review of 133 articles on financial accounting in family firms published in peer-reviewed journals up to 2023. We aimed to assess what scholars have explored so far on this topic, interpreting findings using three levels of analysis: family, business, and individual. The novelty of our paper comes from using this framework to create a thematic map that provides a comprehensive overview of the current research on this topic and developing an extensive research agenda for future studies. The article also provides practical implications for family firm managers, practitioners, and regulators by clarifying the influence of characteristics of family businesses on accounting practices.