Does too much love hinder innovation? Family involvement and firms’ innovativeness in family-owned Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Abstract

Current literature suggests that family involvement has an impact on firm innovativeness, but it is not able to explain in which conditions. Adopting a curvilinear model, (Olson’s circumplex model of family) this research demonstrates that the family's cohesion and flexibility levels play a significant role in the relationship between family involvement and firm innovation propensity.This paper also provides evidence for the theory that previous research limitations are due to the fact that they posit a linear relationship between family involvement and innovativeness. Instead, the Circumplex curvilinear model shows a better fit for explaining the family involvement impact on innovation propensity.

Reacting to a Generalised Crisis. A Theoretical Approach to the Consumption of Slack Resources in Family Firms

“…Downsizing is defined as "the decision by a firm to reduce its capacity of those human resources which exceed the requirements necessary for the efficient operation of the firm" (Mellahi & Wilkinson, 2010, p. 485), this definition being directly related to the recoverable slack. Mellahi and Wilkinson (2010) point out that one of the main weaknesses of studies between slack and innovation is their exclusive focus on the level of slack available in organisations to the extent that they neglect the potential impact of sudden slack reduction on innovation, as family firms consider innovation in a different way (Ferrari, 2019). This is therefore a major gap in research, as companies regularly adjust their slack level to suit the business environment in which they operate in order to remain competitive (Cheng & Kesner, 1997).…”

Kamu Sektöründe Yenilikçilik: Literatür Araştırmasına Dayalı Bir Değerlendirme

“…Özel sektör kuruluşları/işletmeleri söz konusu olduğunda, yenilik kapasitesi veya bir yetkinlik olarak yenilikçiliğin; sermaye (Zaheer ve Bell, 2005;Casanueva ve Gallego, 2010), insan kaynakları (Chang vd., 2006;Staniewski, 2011), örgüt kültürü (Deshpandé ve Farley, 2004;Brettel, Chomik ve Flatten, 2015), insan sermayesi (Chang vd., 2006;Santos-Rodrigues vd., 2010;Pater ve Lewandowska, 2015), örgütün sosyal sermayesi (Luk vd., 2010;Casanueva ve Gallego, 2010) ve risk alma (Kreiser ve Davis, 2010;Dai vd., 2014) gibi etmenlerden pozitif olarak etkilendiği belirtilebilir. Buna karşın; örgüt iklimi (Nystrom vd., 2002;Crespell, 2007), örgütün büyüklüğü (Schultz, Zippel-Schultz, ve Salomo, 2012;Dolfsma ve Van der Velde, 2014), içinde bulunduğu toplumsal yapı ve kültür (Herbig ve Miller, 1991;Brettel, Chomik, ve Flatten, 2015) ve aile şirketlerindeki enformel yapılar (Ferrari, 2019) gibi faktörlerden olumsuz etkilendiği ileri sürülmektedir.…”

Relationships between familiness, innovation and organizational performance in Polish family businesses

“…We demonstrate that management, ownership and control remaining in the hands of the family members might be profitable for FB performance. Second, we focus strongly on the role of innovativeness and seek to enlarge our understanding of the role of innovation input and output plays in the relationship between familiness and FB performance (Ferrari, 2019). Our study demonstrates that innovation output plays a triggering role in the relationship between familiness and FB performance, and investments in innovation pay back in the form of innovation output.…”