This paper’s objective is to analyze the main differences between financial management in family and non-family small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the textile industry. It considers variables such as sales growth and implementation of management control systems (MCS) as strategic and sustainable factors of business competitiveness. In this regard, the paper uses agency theory (Fama, 1980), which identifies that family enterprises have fewer agency costs because ownership and management are held by family members, and contingency theory, which is based on the study of MCS and their related performance (Otley, 1980; Tiessen and Waterhouse, 1983; Chenhall, 2003). The results show that family SMEs have lower sales growth than non-family SMEs and that there is no direct relationship between the implementation of MCS and performance.
