Supporting sustainability: the role of Management Control Systems in family SMEs, cap. 1, in AA.VV. (a cura di Cantino V., De Vincentiis P., Racca G.), Risk management: perspectives and open issues- A multi-disciplinary approach

European countries share a concern about business investment: because of the financial crisis, wealth creation is decreasing and business confidence is weak. At the same time, social problems like unemployment, underemployment, and poverty are increasing. In this context, the need to promote economic development consistent with social and environmental concerns has drastically emerged. There is an increasing opportunity to assess value creation from a sustainability standpoint and with a social responsibility approach. This is what we can define as a “social responsible business model”, based on value creation for stakeholders. In the new context, also the concept of value creation has to be changed from value creation for shareholders to value creation for all stakeholders. Value creation also embed sustainable value (based on a triple bottom line approach), and social responsibility. Since FFs pursue both economic and social objectives, we can say that there is a lot of social responsibility in FFs. Family firms (FFs) seems to be likely to adopt the triple-bottom line paradigm (economic, social, ecological performance) according to their characteristics: literature affirms that additional feature that distinguishes FFs from NFBs is their desire to preserve the family’s socioemotional wealth and the pursuit of nonfinancial outcomes. In the EU environment, SMEs (especially family SMEs) not only contribute significantly to the European GDP and employment, but they are also recognized to adopt business models more sensible to social issues and stakeholder needs. Although sustainability has been discussed in management control literature to highlight the need of sustainability control systems (SCSs), little is known about the mode of integration between SCSs and traditional management control systems in family SMEs. In order to support SMEs in developing more responsible, innovative and competitive business models, this paper proposes to study the role of sustainability control systems (SCSs). In this article we examine the management control literature and family business literature with the purpose of proposing a sustainable business model. We summarize literature’s orientation, in order to identify the drivers of adoption of SCSs and their role in the business model. Starting from a summary of the main FFs features, we will discuss the following research questions: -What are the interactions between different forms of social responsibility in FFs? -How can we transfer the family firms’ attitude to social responsibility in a sustainable business model? -What are main elements of a sustainable business model that can leverage on family firms business model? -What are different tools, mechanisms, solutions needed to adopt and implement a sustainable business model? In summation, sustainability and social responsibility challenges are huge and fast growing: family SMEs can reply to these challenges, supporting positive sustainable development outcomes, with more responsible, innovative and competitive business model.