Collaborative innovation can boost family firms' innovation performance by enabling them to tackle their resource constrains and tap into knowledge, financial capital, technology, and information from other organizations. Unfortunately, existing research on collaborative innovation in family firms is still in its infancy. We systematically review and organize fragmented findings and arguments from prior research along three perspectives: strategic, transactional, and relational. In doing so, we provide a summary of the current state-of-the-art in this literature, point to the importance of collaborative innovation to resolve the innovation dilemma in family firms and identify promising opportunities for future research.

University–industry (U‐I) collaboration is vital to the development of society. However, this important interaction has become something of a caricature whereby a sequential and unidirectional relationship exists, with universities creating knowledge and industries commercializing it. We address this issue by using the triple helix (TH) perspective and the network‐revised Uppsala model of internationalization to demonstrate how this relationship can be reversed. We present an embedded longitudinal case study of a UK–China innovation programme, run by a UK university with the aim of supporting the development of 62 collaborative innovation projects between 58 UK small and medium enterprises and Chinese organizations. The results reveal a pressing need to revisit universities’ third mission: the transfer of academic knowledge to industry. The findings demonstrate universities’ role as internationalization catalysts for firms engaged in U‐I collaboration. This signals an important and underexplored component of the TH perspective. The knowledge exchange type in U‐I relationships shows a possible reversal in firm and university roles, where knowledge and technology are contributed by firms, and access to markets is orchestrated by universities, which become internationalization platforms.

The innovation management and policy literature suggests that government support generally has a positive effect on SMEs' R&D, innovation performance, and fostering international links. However, research in this field has mainly examined the outcomes, overlooking the impact during the course of the R&D partnership, especially in an international context. Using longitudinal data and a transaction cost (TC) approach, we conduct an in-depth case study of a UK-China innovation program aimed at supporting and facilitating R&D partnerships between UK SMEs and Chinese organizations. Examining 11 UK SMEs with 12 R&D partnerships in this program, we identify four stages of the R&D partnership with Chinese organizations, revealing that government support both positively and negatively affects TCs at each stage. Based on these positive and negative effects, we offer empirical and theoretical contributions, as well as managerial and policy implications to support international R&D partnerships.

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PurposeThis paper aims to examine the impact of changes in human capital development and evolution of tacit knowledge following transgenerational succession in ethnic companies. The paper contributes to the understanding of transferring tacit knowledge across generations in ensuring ethnic business sustainability.Design/methodology/approachIn answering the how question, this paper tracked the changes and their impact in the process over time, using the multiple-case study method. A total of six interviews were conducted with three Indian-owned companies in the jewellery industry in Malaysia, with each interview lasting between 45 and 60 min. Secondary data were collected to supplement the primary data for analysis. Data triangulation method was applied to strengthen the design of this study.FindingsThe results indicate that changes in human capital development and tacit knowledge have enabled ethnically Indian-owned jewellery-based companies to alter their products to respond to demands of modern society whilst sustaining and commodifying the ethnic identity of their businesses. The findings also highlight that proper succession planning by ageing entrepreneurs may promote sustainability of these ethnic enterprises.Originality/valueDespite the growing attention on ethnic and migrant entrepreneurship, less is known about the impact of the changes through transgenerational succession over time in ethnic businesses, especially when such changes involve human capital as the key players. This study is important in addressing the gap, in identifying human capital development and tacit knowledge among the critical ethnic resources contributing to ethnic business sustainability. Using a conceptual framework, this paper sheds some light on how ethnic businesses are sustained through transgenerational succession.