Through a systematic review of 118 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1961 and 2017, this article provides an integrative picture of the state of the art of the family firm innovation literature. Our aim is to widen existing understanding of innovation in family firms by building a theoretical bridge with studies in the mainstream innovation literature. Specifically, in identifying the main gaps in the literature and providing future research directions, our critical and dynamic picture of family-specific determinants of innovation is intended to advance the debate on innovation in general, and family firms in particular.

No abstract

This article reviews research on women's involvement in family firms according to a driversbehaviors-outcomes framework. Through a systematic review, we analyze and organize the content of 87 academic articles according to the type of involvement of women in family business, i.e. entrepreneurial entry, succession, career dynamics, and presence in family firms. We identify the drivers and outcomes of women's involvement in family firms at the firm, family, and individual level of analysis, as well as the contextual factors that may influence the aforementioned elements. Drawing on these findings, we identify relevant research gaps, propose a number of future research directions aimed at bridging these gaps, and suggest unexplored research avenues.

By complementing agency theory with behavioral assumptions, we explore the effects of family involvement on small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) performance. We identify three separate dimensions of family involvement and hypothesize nonlinear, direct, and interaction effects on the performance of an SME. The evidence on 787 SMEs suggests that an inverted U‐shaped relationship exists between family ownership and performance, and ownership dispersion among family members negatively affects performance. Balancing family and nonfamily members in the top management team (TMT) is found to be beneficial to SMEs’ performance, but the family ratio in the TMT becomes crucial only at high levels of family ownership.

No abstract