Innovation in family and non-family businesses: a resource perspective

Josep Llach and Mattias Nordqvist

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 2010, vol. 2, issue 3/4, 381-399

Abstract: This article expands our understanding regarding the differences in innovative behaviour between family and non-family firms. To detect real rather than sample differences between independent family and non-family manufacturing companies in Spain, we use a matched sample methodology with data from the European Manufacturing Survey – a European cross-national survey launched in 11 countries and focused on the manufacturing sector. A Mann-Whitney U non-parametric test revealed that six out of seven measures were statistically significant between the two matched groups of companies. We found differences between family and non-family firms with regard to the role of human, social and marketing capital for innovation. These findings are of interest because some of them run contrary to conventional thinking that family firms are less innovative than non-family firms.

Keywords: innovation; human capital; social capital; marketing capital; non-family businesses; family businesses; innovative behaviour; manufacturing companies; Spain; European Manufacturing Survey; Mann-Whitney U test; non-parametric tests; statistical significance; entrepreneurial venturing; business ventures; entrepreneurs; entrepreneurship; entrepreneurialism; family firms. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (46)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=37119 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijeven:v:2:y:2010:i:3/4:p:381-399

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().