The Internationalization of Oil&Gas Family Businesses

The internalization of family businesses– i.e. of the companies that implement it - can be stimulated by numerous reasons: one of these is linked to the target markets, not in terms of market development, but of resource to be used / exploited. What makes the oil companies distinguishing is that: they follow the territory and the exploitation of the underground resources, wherever they are in the world. In the Italian context, this characteristic of oilfield companies is very noticeable due to the scarcity of underground resources, which characterize our territory. We propose an empirical approach. It has been considered the case of a specific Italian Oil&Gas family firm. The study consists of: a first part, in which an analysis of the main economic and managerial literature, both national and international, was made (on internationalization, SMEs and family businesses, industrial districts, oilfield environment); a second part, in which an empirical analysis was developed: interviews have been conducted with the owners and top management of the company, in order to study and analyze the firm development strategies.