The idea has been adopted by Welsh firm Smoke Control Services.

Boss Allan Meek told icWales:

"We brought in the Soprano-style family idea recently after we'd reached a plateau in sales.

"We wanted to make our engineers more entrepreneurial to kick-start growth."

Under the system, an engineer can take on an assistant once he has reached a certain level of orders.

Allan added:

"The Mafia bit is that the Capo [a senior member] keeps a share of the sales bonus of the new recruit in return for managing and developing him, in the same way that the Mafia soldier pays a tribute to the boss."