Generational Involvement in the Top Management Team of Family Firms: Exploring Nonlinear Effects on Entrepreneurial Orientation

Abstract

The present study contends that an inverted U–shaped relationship exists between generational involvement—i.e., the number of family generations simultaneously involved in the family–firm top management team (TMT)—and entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Drawing on the upper echelons theory, we conceive generational involvement as a proxy of knowledge diversity in multigenerational family TMTs. We argue that while moderate levels of generational involvement stimulate task–related constructive conflicts for EO, increased kinship distance and relationship conflicts led by high levels of generational involvement are likely to undermine this potential advantage by damaging the relational context for EO. Our hypothesis is confirmed on a data set of 199 family firms.

Entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance in family SMEs: the moderating effects of family, women, and strategic involvement in the board of directors

“…We measured the EO of family firms using Covin and Slevin's (1989) proposed second-order construct, based on the works of Miller and Friesen (1982) and Miller (1983) and refined into its current definition (e.g., Cruz and Nordqvist 2012;Nordqvist et al 2008;Moreno and Casillas 2008;Sciascia et al 2013). …”

“…Regarding the former, how the competitive environment (Lumpkin and Dess, 2001) and firm networks (Stam and Elfring 2008) influence EO have been studied. Regarding internal factors, authors have focused on how EO is affected by the effects of CEO characteristics (Boling et al 2016;Cruz and Nordqvist 2012), the impact of generational involvement in management (Casillas et al 2011;Sciascia et al 2013), the differences between long and short orientations (Lumpkin et al 2010), and organizational culture (Zahra et al 2004). …”

Tweaking the entrepreneurial orientation–performance relationship in family firms: the effect of control mechanisms and family-related goals

“…Attempts to transmit the EO-performance relationship to family firms have been pursued, predominantly by analyzing the effect of particular EO dimensions from the multidimensional construct on financial performance (e.g. Lumpkin et al 2009;De Massis et al 2014;Naldi et al 2007;Bouncken et al 2016), by focusing on growth as the performance measure , by investigating effects of management composition (Sciascia et al 2013), or by investigating the moderating effect of Socio-Emotional Wealth (SEW) on the unidimensional EOperformance relationship (Schepers et al 2014). Despite the importance to understand how entrepreneurial attitudes take effect in family firms, there is not yet a concordant opinion on the transmission of the multidimensional EO construct on family firm performance (Zellweger and Sieger 2012;Kallmuenzer 2015).…”

Empresa Familiar, Equipos Directivos, Diversidad Y Ambidiestría en Las Pymes

“…la exploración (Sciascia et al, 2013). Stubner et al (2012), en una muestra de 104 empresas familiares alemanas de diverso tamaño, no encuentran una relación directa entre la variedad de generaciones involucradas y la ambidiestría pero sí entre el carácter familiar y la ambidiestría.…”

“…Esto es coherente con Sharma y Salvatto (2011) que argumentan sobre la necesidad de un fuerte control sobre la propiedad cuando se pretenden realizar inversiones en proyectos cuyos resultados serán a largo plazo. Por su parte, Sciascia et al (2013) encuentran una relación curvilínea inversa entre la diversidad generacional y la capacidad exploradora de los TMT en las empresas familiares.…”