Sustaining family-firm innovation through value and process principles

Abstract

Purpose Organization renewal through innovation represents a difficult managerial challenge in family firms. This paper aims to reveal a framework for sustaining innovation capabilities through a perspective of value and process principles. Design/methodology/approach The author examined the findings from consulting projects in high performing family firms and literature from the areas of family firm strategy and leadership. Findings The author describes how combining patterns of innovative organizations with patterns of high-performing family firms can help leaders to sustain innovation. This study indicates that a value- and process-driven perspective is important for effective innovation. In particular, the four value principles are continuity-, community-, connection- and command-related factors (4C’s). The four process principles, in turn, are profession-, project-, product- and purchase-related factors (4P’s). Originality/value This paper is a part of a wider study of innovative German family firms initiated in 2012. The 4C’s and 4P’s framework suggests a practical means to better implement innovation by reconciling the firm’s innovation strategy, leadership behavior and organizational learning.

Emotionally intelligent top management and high family firm performance: Evidence from Germany

“…A family's power to shape the firm's goals and behaviors is a resource that differentiates family from non-family firms (Neffe et al, 2020). Its long-term orientation and value-driven decision-making has been associated with high-performance firms (Carr, Vardaman, Marler, McLarty, & ;Kellermanns et al, 2014;Lattuch, 2019). This paper draws attention to the fact that family-based CEOs and their TMT members tend to interact in emotionally-loaded contexts since the family and the business are always intertwined.…”