Disentangling the family firm’s innovation process: A systematic review

Irina Röd

Journal of Family Business Strategy, 2016, vol. 7, issue 3, 185-201

Abstract: Previous reviews have advanced our knowledge of the differences in innovation in family firms compared to non-family firms. For example, family firms invest less in innovation, but this does not necessarily mean that they are less innovative. Nonetheless, we are still lacking a comprehensive overview of the family firm's innovation process, and how the family accounts for distinctiveness in innovation inputs, activities, and outputs. To address this gap, the present systematic review article analyzed 78 peer-reviewed journal articles on innovation in family businesses. Subsequently, a conceptual framework is developed that provides a holistic view of the multi-staged innovation process by incorporating the family system as an influencing context variable. Building on the concept of familiness, the framework demonstrates how family factors, based in the family system, affect the various stages of the family firm’s innovation process. Whether the family leads to an advantage or disadvantage for the innovation behavior of the business depends on contextual factors (e.g., performance hazards, kind of family involvement, and generational effects) and first and foremost on the familiness of the firm. The insights of this review are used to develop suggestions for future research.

Keywords: Family firms; Innovation; Innovation process; Family system; Literature review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.jfbs.2016.08.004

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