Overcoming the ability-willingness paradox in small family firms’ collaborations

Christina Guenther (), Maksim Belitski () and Nada Rejeb ()
Additional contact information
Christina Guenther: WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management
Maksim Belitski: University of Reading
Nada Rejeb: ICD Business School

Small Business Economics, 2023, vol. 60, issue 4, No 6, 1409-1429

Abstract: Abstract Family firms’ collaborative innovation is characterized by the so-called ability-willingness paradox i.e. they are less willing to engage in collaborations despite being more able to manage them for innovation purposes. In this paper, we introduce collaboration partner type and spatial proximity as two important boundary conditions of this paradox. We examine the differences in collaboration for innovation across different spatial proximities and partner types for small family and non-family firms. We use a large sample of 6272 small firms in the United Kingdom (UK) during 2002–2016 to show that this paradox is indeed not a universal phenomenon. Small family firms overcome their lower willingness when collaborating with customers within regional proximity and, based on their unique characteristics and superior ability to govern these collaborations, they are able to generate an innovation premium compared to small non-family firms.

Keywords: Small family firm; Customers; Innovation; Ability-willingness paradox; Collaboration; Region (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D8 L14 L21 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11187-022-00669-8 Abstract (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:kap:sbusec:v:60:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s11187-022-00669-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/11187/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11187-022-00669-8

Access Statistics for this article

Small Business Economics is currently edited by Zoltan J. Acs and David B. Audretsch

More articles in Small Business Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().