¹ Gelina Harlaftis, “Mapping the Greek Maritime Diaspora from the Early Eighteenth to the Late Nineteenth Centuries” and Chatziioannou, Maria Christina, “Greek Merchant Networks in the Age of Empires (1770–1870),” both in Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries of History, ed. McCabe, Ina Bagdiantz, Harlaftis, Gelina, and Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis (Oxford, 2005)Google Scholar; Zakharov, Viktor N., Harlaftis, Gelina, and Katsiardi-Hering, Olga, eds., Merchant Colonies in the Early Modern Period (Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries) (London, 2012)Google Scholar.

² I refer to the Sifneo Frères and the F. I. Svorono trading companies based in Taganrog, Azov Sea, Russia. The Sifneo Frères archive has been deposited at the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens (henceforth IHR/NHRF). On the Sifneos family firm, see Sifneos, Evrydiki, Greek Merchants in the Azov Sea: The Power and the Limits of a Family Business (Athens, 2009)Google Scholar. The Fokion I. Svorono Commercial Archive, 1879-1920, is located in the General State Archives of the Prefecture of Cephalonia (henceforth Cephalonia, GSAG).

³ On the resource-based view, see Habbershon, Timothy G. and Williams, Mary A., “A Resource-Based Framework for Assessing the Strategic Advantages of Family Firms,” Family Business Review 12 (Mar. 1999): 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barney, Jay, “Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage,” Journal of Management 17 (1991): 99–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the role of family in firms, see Deyer, W. Gibb, “Examining the ‘Family Effect’ on Firm Performance,” Family Business Review 19, no. 4 (Dec. 2006): 253–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the decisive role of family transformations and their contribution to the creation of new ventures, see Aldrich, Howard E. and Cliff, Jennifer E., “The Pervasive Effects of Family on Entrepreneurship: Toward a Family Embeddedness Perspective,” Journal of Business Venturing 18 (2003): 573–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Fred V. Carstensen argues that there was significant foreign investment prior to 1895, primarily in response to the potential of Russia's mass market rather than to government enticements. See Carstensen, Fred V., “Foreign Participation in Russian Economic Life: Notes on British Enterprise, 1865–1914,” in Entrepreneurship in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, ed. Guroff, Gregory and Carstensen, Fred V. (Princeton, 1983), 140-–57Google Scholar.

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⁵ See, as an example, the export firm Prometheus, based in Rostov in 1915. Letter from the Greek Vice-Consulate of Rostov to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens, 22 Aug. 1912, I/79, 1, 1915, Historical Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Athens, Greece (hereafter, IAYE).

⁶ Hillman, Henning and Aven, Brandy L., “Fragmented Networks and Entrepreneurship in Late Imperial Russia,” American Journal of Sociology 117 (Sept. 2011): 484–538CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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¹⁰ Owen, Thomas C., “Impediments to a Bourgeois Consciousness in Russia, 1880-1905: The Estate Structure, Ethnic Diversity, and Economic Regionalism,” in Between Tzar and the People: Educated Society and the Quest for Public Identity in Late Imperial Russia, ed. Clowes, Edith W., Kassow, Samuel D., and West, James L. (Princeton, 1991), 75–89Google Scholar.

¹¹ Freeze, Gregory, “The Soslovie (Estate) Paradigm and Russian Social History,” American Historical Review 91 (Feb. 1986): 11–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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¹³ Herlihy, Patricia, “Greek Merchants in Odessa in the Nineteenth Century,” in Eucharisterion: Essays Presented to Omeljan Pritsak on His Sixtieth Birthday by His Colleagues and Students, ed. Sevcenko, Ihor and Sysyn, Frank E., 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 1: 399–420Google Scholar; Zakharov, Victor, “Vneshnetorgovaya deyatelnost' inostrannykh kuptsov v portakh Azovskogo i Chyornogo morey v seredine i vtoroy polovine XVIII v,” Vestnik Mosk. un-ta, ser. 8, Istoriya 4 (2004): 85–102Google Scholar; Kardasis, Vassilis, Diaspora Merchants in the Black Sea: The Greeks in Southern Russia, 1775–1861 (Lanham, Md., 2001)Google Scholar; Harlaftis, Gelina, “The Role of Greeks in the Black Sea Trade, 1830–1900,” in Shipping and Trade, 1750–1950: Essays in International Maritime Economic History, ed. Fischer, Lewis R. and Nordvik, Helge W. (Pontefract, 1990), 63–95Google Scholar; Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis, “The Greek Merchant House of the Russian Black Sea: A Nineteenth-Century Example of a Trader's Coalition,” International Journal of Maritime History 10 (June 1998): 61–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sifneos, Evrydiki, “Can Commercial Techniques Substitute Port Institutions? Evidence from the Greek Presence in the Black and Azov Sea Ports (1780–1850),” in Instituzioni e Traffici nel Mediterraneo tra età antica e crescita moderna, ed. Salvemini, Raffaella (Naples, 2009), 77–90Google Scholar; Sifneos, Evrydiki, “Diaspora Entrepreneurship Revisited: Greek Merchants and Firms in the Southern Russian Ports,” Entreprises et Histoire 63 (June 2011): 40–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Merchant Enterprises and Strategies in the Sea of Azov Ports,” International Journal of Maritime History 22 (June 2010): 259–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sifneos, Evrydiki and Harlaftis, Gelina, “Entrepreneurship at the Russian Frontier of International Trade: The Greek Merchant Community of Taganrog in the Azov Sea,” in Merchant Colonies in the Early Modern Period (Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries), ed. Zakharov, Viktor N., Harlaftis, Gelina, and Katsiardi-Hering, Olga (London, 2012), 157–80Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Kirchner, Walther, “Western Businessmen in Russia: Practices and Problems,” Business History Review 38 (Autumn 1964): 315–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵ An example was the well-known fraud at the Customs House of Taganrog (1881) in which several prominent Greek trading houses and Russian officials were implicated. See Report by Consul Wooldridge on the Trade, and Commerce of Taganrog and other Ports of the Sea of Azov for the Year 1881, Taganrog, Russia, Annual Series, Foreign Commonwealth Office Library, London, UK (hereafter, FCOL).

¹⁶ During this period, 1774-1829, most vessels that visited the Russian ports were either Ottoman or Russian, but they had mainly Greek masters and crew, many of whom gradually settled in the Black Sea ports. See, in this respect, the List of Merchants Residing in Taganrog and Registered by the Greek Magistrate, 841.2.579, Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rostovskoi oblasti (Rostov Region State Archive), Russia (hereafter, RRSA).

¹⁷ Basu, Anuradha, “Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship,” in The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship, ed. Casson, Mark, Yeung, Bernard, Basu, Anuradha, and Wadeson, Nigel (Oxford, 2006), 592Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Harlaftis, “The Role of Greeks in the Black Sea Trade, 1830–1900”; Ioannidis, Stavros and Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis, “Diaspora Entrepreneurship between History and Theory,” in Entrepreneurship in Theory and History, ed. Cassis, Youssef and Minoglou, Ioanna Pepelasis (London, 2005), 163–89Google Scholar; Sifneos, Evrydiki, “The Changes in the Russian Grain Trade and the Adaptability of the Greek Merchant Houses,” Historica 40 (June 2004): 53–96 (in Greek)Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Falkus, Malcolm E., “Russia and the International Wheat Trade, 1861–1914,” Economica, n.s. 33 (Nov. 1966): 416–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ For 1806, 579.1.8, RRSA; for 1897, Pervaya vseobshaya perepis' naselenya Rossiiskoi Imperii, 1897, Oblast voiska Donskogo (Moscow, 1905), table 1Google Scholar.

²¹ List of Rostov exporters: Otcet rostovskogo na/Donu birzogo komitetaza desjatletie, 1886–1895gg, Rostov 1897; R 933/13 for 1897-1898, R 9331/68 for 1899, P 9331/17 for 1900, Bundesarchiv Berlin; and 22.5.274 for 1901, Russian State Historical Archive, Moscow.

²² I examine trade and its development as a partial cause of location. See Storper, Michael, “Globalization, Localization, and Trade,” in The Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography, ed. Clark, Gordon L., Feldman, Maryann P., and Gertler, Meric S. (Oxford, 2000), 146–65Google Scholar.

²³ A good example is the diary of Ivan Alexseevich Tolchënov, an eighteenth-century Russian merchant, which records his inability to control his assets and his continuous aspiration to adapt to the tastes and lifestyle of the nobility, which finally led him to bankruptcy. See Ransel, David L., A Russian Merchant's Tale: The Life and Adventures of Ivan Alexseevich Tolchënov, Based on His Diary (Bloomington, 2009)Google Scholar.

²⁴ Harvey, Moise L., “The Development of Russian Commerce on the Black Sea and Its Significance,” PhD diss., University of California, 1938, 292–330Google Scholar. On the importance of the Straits in the mid-nineteenth-century crisis, see Puryear, Vernon J., England, Russia, and the Straits Question, 1844–1856 (Berkeley, 1931)Google Scholar; Puryear, Vernon J., International Economics and Diplomacy in the Near East, 1834–1853 (Stanford, 1935), 146–79Google Scholar.

²⁵ As coined by Casson, Mark, The Entrepreneur: An Economic Theory (Cheltenham, 2003), 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁶ Reports by the British Consuls on the Trade and Commerce of Taganrog for the Years 1863–67, 1878–81, Russia, Annual Series, Diplomatic and Consular Trade Reports, FCOL.

²⁷ Novikova, Svitlana, “Vnesok grekiv u rosvitok torgovo sudnoplavstva azovs'komu mori (druga polovina XIX-pochatok CC st),” PhD diss., Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2005Google Scholar.

²⁸ Foreign merchants established in the Azov ports did not own vessels for cabotage as the Greeks did. List of Ships Registered to the Port of Taganrog in 1867, 579.2.841, RRSA.

²⁹ Shliakhov, Oleksii B., “Sudnovlasniki Azovo-Chornomors'kogo baseinu naprikintsi XIX-na pochatku XX st.,” Ukrain'skii istorichnii zhurnal 1 (2006): 61–72Google Scholar.

³⁰ Data from the 1897 All Russian Census, Pervaya vseobshayaperepis' naselenya Rossiiskoi Imperii, 1897, oblast voiska Donskogo (Moscow, 1905), table 1Google Scholar.

³¹ Ibid., table 13.

³² Ibid. Processed data from table 12.

³³ In 1912, the Greek Consul was protesting against the gradual loss of ethnic characteristics of the Taganrog Greeks. Report of the Greek Consul S. Kiouzes-Pezas to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Consulate of Taganrog, 1, 113, 1912, IAYE.

³⁴ Metric Books of the Church of St. Constantine and Helen, 226.19.585, 803.2.609, 803.2.611, 803.2.613, 803.2.615, 803.2.617, 803.2.621, 803.2.1555, 226.21.641, RRSA.

³⁵ According to the amount of capital they declared, they belonged to one of the three guilds. The first guild traded with a capital that exceeded 15,000 rubles, the second traded with a capital over 8,000 rubles, and the third with a capital over 2,000. After the 1860s merchants merged into two guilds. For the Lists of Merchants of Taganrog, see 589.1.5, 589.1.76, 5893.16.56, 589.1.40, 579.3.2, 577.1.92, 579.1.100, 589.1.10, RRSA.

³⁶ Ukaz on the establishment of the Greek Magistrate, 11 Jul. 1781, no. 1192, series 579.1.409, RRSA.

³⁷ List of Merchants of Taganrog's Greek Magistrate 1775-1803, 579.3.2, RRSA.

³⁸ Five out of seven are reported as members of the first guild, eighty-six out of ninety-four as members of the second, and twenty-seven out of forty-six as members of the third. List of Merchants of the Greek Magistrate, 1775-1803, 579.3.2, RRSA.

³⁹ Zakharov, “Vneshnetorgovaya deyatelnost' inostrannykh kuptsov v portakh Azovskogo i Chyornogo morey v seredine i vtoroy polovine XVIII v.”

⁴⁰ Kahan, Arcadius, “Notes on Jewish Entrepreneurship in Tsarist Russia,” in Entrepreneurship in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, ed. Guroff, Gregory and Carstensen, Fred V. (Princeton, 1983), 104–24Google Scholar.

⁴¹ List of merchants of Taganrog 1867, 585.1.15, and 1894, 589.1.69, RRSA.

⁴² Almanakh-spravochnik g. Taganrog i ego okrug (Taganrog, 1912)Google Scholar.

⁴³ Ves' Rostov N/D na 1898 god. Adres-Kalendar’, torgovo-promyshlennaia, spravochnaia kniga (Rostov, 1898), 281, 320–21.

⁴⁴ See their participation in the establishment of the Azov-Don Commercial Bank. V. V. Morozan, “Deyatel'nost' Azovsko-Donskogo kommercheskogo banka na iuge Rossii v kontse XIX v,” paper presented in the III nauchnye chteniia pamiati professora V. I. Bovykina, Moscow State University, 31 Jan. 2007, see: http://www.hist.msu.ru/Science/Conf/01_2007 (accessed 14 May 2009).

⁴⁵ Through Maris Vagliano's connection with his brothers in London, Greek merchants were able to renew their fleet by purchasing second-hand British steamships in the 1890s. Harlaftis, Gelina, “From Diaspora Traders to Shipping Tycoons: The Vagliano Bros.,” Business History Review 81 (Summer 2007): 262CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ On the importance of the Constantinople branch, see Sifneos, , Greek Merchants in the Azov, 247–309Google Scholar. On the power of the “Ionian” network in the Azov and its connections with London see Harlaftis, , “From Diaspora Traders to Shipping Tycoons,” 258–64Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ In 1866, for example, only three British firms were members of the merchant guild of Taganrog, compared to six Italian, and fifty-one Greek. List of Merchants of Taganrog for the Year 1866, 589.1.15, RRSA.

⁴⁸ Harlaftis, Gelina, “Russian Port Customs, Anton Chekhov, and Maris Vagliano, the ‘Emperor’ of Azov Sea: Confronting Institutions in the Russian Empire, 1880s,” paper given at the annual conference of the Economic History Society, University of Durham, 26-28 Mar. 2010Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Report on the Trade and Commerce of the Consular District of Taganrog for the Year 1895, Russia, Annual Series, Diplomatic and Consular Trade Reports, FCOL.

⁵⁰ On the Taganrog crisis and Ilias Isaia's bankruptcy, see Sifneos, , Greek Merchants in the Azov, 145–48Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Letter of Dimitrios Sifneo from Taganrog to his father, 17 May 1895, outgoing correspondence; Account of Profits and Losses for the Year 1895, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁵² On the 1857 bankruptcies of the Greek merchants in the City of London, see Chatziioannou, Maria-Christina and Harlaftis, Gelina, “From the Levant to the City of London: Mercantile Credit in the Greek International Commercial Networks of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in Centers and Peripheries in Banking: The Historical Development of Financial Markets, ed. Cottrell, Philip L., Lange, Even, and Olsson, Ulf (Burlington, Vt., 2007), 14–40Google Scholar.

⁵³ In the case of the Sifneo Frères, see Sifneos, , Greek Merchants in the Azov, 215–45Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Report by Consul Carruthers on the Trade and Commerce of Taganrog for the Year 1878, Russia, Annual Series, Diplomatic and Consular Trade Reports, FCOL.

⁵⁵ Exports of wheat, which was the basic cereal, fell from 55,852,000 poods in 1870-1874 to 44,953,000 in 1875-1879 and 25,274,000 in 1880–1884. Zolotov, , Khlebny Export Rossii cherez porti Chernogo I Azovskogo morei v 60–90 e godi XIX veka (Rostov, 1966), 199Google Scholar. (Where 1 pood is equivalent to 16.38 kilos.)

⁵⁶ Report by Consul Talbot on the Trade and Commerce of Taganrog for the Year 1895, Taganrog, Russia, Annual Series, Diplomatic and Consular Trade Reports, FCOL.

⁵⁷ Their records comprise mainly incoming and outgoing commercial as well as family correspondence, ledgers, and accounts on the performance of the firms in Taganrog, and material referring to their withdrawal to Constantinople and Cephalonia during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). The Svorono records contain important documents on the profit-ability of voyages by the company's sailing ships to and from the Azov Sea, and the Sifneos Archive contains valuable information on the company's shift to industrial ventures after the Russian phase (1850–1919) and during the installation of its headquarters in Piraeus (1924–1940). Fokion Svorono's Commercial Archive, 1879-1920, Cephalonia, GSAG and Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁵⁸ Their capital did not exceed that of medium-scale British trading houses of the 1850s (£50.000), described by Stanley Chapman. Chapman, Stanley, Merchant Enterprise in Britain: From the Industrial Revolution to World War I (Cambridge, UK, 1992), 158–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁹ On the argument of embeddedness as it is formulated by the economic sociologists, see Granovetter, Mark, “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness,” American Journal of Sociology 91, no. 3 (Nov. 1985): 481–510CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁰ Among Taganrog's Greek export firms were also those of Dimitrios Petrokokkino, Amvrosios Scaramanga, Constantinos Moussouri, Vasilios Mavro, Maris Vagliano, Dimitrios Negroponte, and Ilias Isaia, which administered bigger capital. Report by Consul Wagstaff on the Navigation and Trade of Taganrog at the Ports of the Sea of Azoff for the year 1886, Russia, Annual Series, Diplomatic and Consular Trade Reports, FCOL. List of Merchants of the City of Taganrog in 1844, 589.1.44; List of Merchants of the City of Taganrog in 1866, 589.1.16, RRSA.

⁶¹ Report by Consul Wagstaff on the Navigation and Trade of Taganrog at the Ports of the Sea of Azoff for the year 1886, Russia, Annual Series, Diplomatic and Consular Trade Reports, FCOL.

⁶² Account of W. Yeames in Taganrog with Barings, General Ledger for the Year 1836, Barings Bros. Records, Baring Archive, London, UK.

⁶³ Report by Consul Carruthers on the Trade and Commerce of Taganrog for the Year 1877, Russia, Annual Series, Diplomatic and Consular Trade Reports, FCOL.

⁶⁴ Casson, Mark, The Entrepreneur: An Economic Theory (Cheltenham, 1982), 24–33Google Scholar; Wadeson, Nigel, “Cognitive Aspects of Entrepreneurship: Decision-Making Attitudes to Risk,” in The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship, ed. Casson, Mark, Yeung, Bernard, Basu, Anuradha, and Wadeson, Nigel (Oxford, 2006), 90–94Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ On the role of networks see Podolny, Joel M. and Page, Karen L., “Network Forms of Organization,” Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998): 57–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁶ “Report on my activities in Taganrog from 1879 to 1891, i.e., for 13 years managed by Y. M. Syrigo,” Copies of Letters, 1891, Ia, outgoing commercial correspondence; “Results from my imports in Taganrog and other places from 1891 to 1899 managed by D. K. Mengola”; “Results from my dispatches of olive-oil from 1900 till 1907,” Miscellaneous, XI, Fokion I. Svorono Commercial Archive, 1879-1920, Cephalonia, GSAG.

⁶⁷ “Results from the management by the Sifneo Frères of my import and export business from the year 1900 until 1913,” Miscellaneous, XI, Fokion I. Svorono Commercial Archive, 1879–1920, Cephalonia, GSAG.

⁶⁸ Petition of Theodore Sifneo to the Russian authorities in order to leave Russia for Constantinople, 29 Jan. 1877, no. 278, 579.3.266, RRSA.

⁶⁹ Letters from Apostolos Sifneo and Dimitrios Sifneo from Constantinople to their father Zannos Sifneo in Lesvos and brothers in Taganrog, 23 Jul. 1895, 31 Jul. 1895, 1 Aug. 1895, 5 Aug. 1895, 8 Aug. 1895, 19 Aug. 1895, 16 Sept. 1895, 14 Aug. 1896, 27 Aug. 1896, 17 Sept. 1896, 21 Sept. 1896, Commercial correspondence; Accounts of Profits and Losses, 1884–1909, of the Sifneo Frères family firm, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁷⁰ “Exports of Currants to Russia from 1879 to 1892,” Miscellaneous, XI, Fokion Svorono Commercial Archive, 1879–1920, Cephalonia, GSAG.

⁷¹ “Note on the cereal exports from Taganrog from the year 1900, when I delegated this work to the Sifneo Frères” and “General results of my activities according to the balance sheets of my ledgers from the year 1895, in gold francs,” Miscellaneous, XI, Fokion I. Svorono Commercial Archive, 1879–1920, Cephalonia, GSAG.

⁷² “Note on my insurance from the year 1879 until the year 1912,” Miscellaneous, XI, Fokion Svorono Commercial Archive, 1879-1920, Cephalonia, GSAG.

⁷³ Casson, Mark, “The Economic Analysis of the Multinational Trading Companies,” in The Multinational Traders, ed. Jones, Geoffrey G. (London, 1998), 29–31Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ See Casson's analysis on the brokerage and reselling services in “The Economic Analysis of the Multinational Trading Companies,” 24-27.

⁷⁵ The firm experienced losses only during the 1895 crisis. The rise in its performance after 1903 is related to the improvement of Russia's grain prices in the international market. Sifneo Frères Balance Sheets and Accounts of Profit and Losses, 1899-1909, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁷⁶ Import trade represented 8 percent of the gross profits, commission trade 60 percent, export trade for their own account 12 percent, currency trade 6 percent, and miscellaneous 14 percent. See Sifneo Frères Accounts of Profit and Losses, 1883-1909, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁷⁷ Letter from Panayotis Sifneo to his brother, Theodore, in Taganrog, 15 Jan. 1852; Balance Sheets of Sifneo Frères in Taganrog, 1890-1909, at 31 Dec. 1890, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁷⁸ Letter from Apostolos Sifneo to his father, Zannos, informing him of his cousin's bankruptcy, 30 Sept. 1904, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁷⁹ Letter from Panayotis Sifneo in Montpellier, France, to his brother, Theodore, in Taganrog, 15 Jan. 1852, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁸⁰ See the strategic allegiance with the entrepreneur and brother-in-law, Thrasyvoulos Alepoudeli, which opened to Sifneo Frères the gateways to the Greek market and offered them privileged relationship with the Greek statesman Eleftherios Venizelos. Sifneos, , Greek Merchants in the Sea of Azov, 314–16, 378–80Google Scholar.

⁸¹ Letter from Vasilios Sifneo in Taganrog to his father in Lesvos, 20 Aug. 1896, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁸² Letter from Vasilios Sifneo in Taganrog to his mother in Lesvos, 5 Aug. 1912, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁸³ “Familiness” is conceived as the assembling of four categories of family business resources: physical capital, human capital, organizational capital, and process capital resources due to the interaction between the family, its members, and the business. See Habbershon and Williams, “A Resource-Based Framework,” 11. Letter from Dimitrios Sifneo in Taganrog to his parents in Lesvos, 9 Jul. 1901, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁸⁴ See, for example, the effect of playing the French game croquet, an outdoor game played in teams, in which men, women, and children took part, or French cards (belote) played in couples. Sifneos, , Greek Merchants in the Sea of Azov, 460–63Google Scholar. Habbershon, Timothy G. and Astrachan, Joseph H., “Perceptions Are Reality: How Family Meetings Lead to Collective Action,” Family Business Review 10, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 37–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁵ On the sixty Chiot families that formed the Chiot network, see Harlaftis, , “Mapping the Greek Maritime Diaspora,” 155–57Google Scholar. On a comparative perspective of the different Greek diaspora groups settled in Western, Eastern, and Central Europe, see Chatziioannou, , “Greek Merchant Networks,” 371–81Google Scholar. On the cultural features of the Greek merchant diaspora, see Sifneos, Evrydiki, “‘Cosmopolitanism’ as a Feature of the Greek Commercial Diaspora,” History and Anthropology 16 (Mar. 2005): 97–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁶ See Sifneos, , Greek Merchants in the Sea of Azov, 381–82Google Scholar and appendix, Family Tree.

⁸⁷ Letter from Vasilios Sifneo in Taganrog to his father in Lesvos, 30 Aug. 1895, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF. On the importance of a shared dream in the succession process, see Lansberg, Irvin, Succeeding Generations: Realizing the Dream of Families in Business (Boston, 1999)Google Scholar.

⁸⁸ See, for example, their efforts to overcome the 1895 negative performance due to bankruptcies of many Greek firms in Taganrog. Letters from Dimitrios Sifneo in Taganrog to his father in Lesvos, 19 Jun. 1896, 10 Jul. 1896, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁸⁹ Letter of Dimitrios Sifneo from Taganrog to his father, Zannos in Lesvos, 8 Aug. 1898; liquidation act of the firm 1 Aug. 1898, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁹⁰ Letter from Fokion I. Svorono to his son Constantine in Marseilles, 26 Feb. (11 Mar.) 1910, Private Correspondence, 1910–1915, Fokion I. Svorono Commercial Archive, 1879–1920, Cephalonia, GSAG.

⁹¹ Letter from Vasilios Sifneo from Taganrog to his mother, 16 Jul. 1899, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF; Sifneos, , Greek Merchants in the Sea of Azov, 494–95Google Scholar.

⁹² See Accounts of Profits and Losses, 1885–1909, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁹³ The front rooms of the house overlooking the main street served as the firm's headquarters, while the back part was for the family's residential needs. See plan of the house at 73 Alexandrofsky Street in Taganrog and Register of moveable property of the Aristeidis Sifneo's house in Taganrog, 5 Apr. 1919, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁹⁴ Letter of Marietta Sifneo from Taganrog to her sister-in-law Sappho in Lesvos, 20 Oct. 1903, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF. On the impact of women in the family business, see Sifneos, , Greek Merchants, 355–93Google Scholar.

⁹⁵ Jones, Geoffrey and Rose, Mary B., “Family Capitalism,” Business History 35 (Oct. 1993): 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rose, Mary B., Family Business (Aldershot, 1995)Google Scholar; see also an answer to Chandler's, Alfred D. Jr.Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, Mass., 1990)Google Scholar in Church, Roy, “The Family Firm in Industrial Capitalism: International Perspectives on Hypotheses and History,” Business History 35, no. 4 (Oct. 1993): 17–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁶ Letter from Apostolos Sifneo in Constantinople to his father in Lesvos, 24 Aug. 1896; Current Account of Zannos Sifneo from 1 Jan. 1890 to 31 Dec. 1890, Sifneos Archive, IHR/NHRF.

⁹⁷ Rose, Mary B., “Beyond Buddenbrooks: The Family Firm and the Management of Succession in Nineteenth Century Britain,” in Entrepreneurship, Networks and Modern Business, ed. Brown, Jonathan and Rose, Mary B. (Manchester, 1993), 127–43Google Scholar. See also, on the dynastic motive, Casson, Mark, “The Economics of the Family Firm,” Scandinavian Economic History Review 47, no. 1 (1997): 10–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁸ See, as an example, the export firm Prometheus, based in Rostov in 1915, and the Azov-Don Commercial Bank in which Greek merchants from Taganrog played initially an important role. Later the strategy of the Russian St. Petersburg investors prevailed. Letter from the Greek Vice-Consulate of Rostov to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens, 22 Aug. 1912, I/79, 1, 1915, IAYE. Morozan, “Deyatel'nost' Azovsko-Donskogo.”