Alfredo Vittorio De Massis

Factors Preventing Intra-Family Succession

Although research on management succession is a dominant topic in the family business literature, little systematic attention has been given to the factors that prevent intra-family succession from occurring. Based on a review and analysis of the literature, this article presents a preliminary model on the factors that prevent intra-family succession.

Research on Technological Innovation in Family Firms: Present Debates and Future Directions

The purpose of this article is to review and systematize prior work on technological innovation in family firms and to open up an agenda to guide future research into this promising area. The study shows that family involvement has direct effects on innovation inputs (e.g., R&D expenditures), activities (e.g., leadership in new product development projects), and outputs (e.g., number of new products), as well as moderating effects on the relationships between these steps of technological innovation. The article uses theories applied in family business research (e.g., agency theory) to discuss opportunities for extending technological innovation frameworks by considering family involvement.

Goal Setting in Family Firms: Goal Diversity, Social Interactions, and Collective Commitment to Family‐Centered Goals

Goal setting in family firms is very complex due to the interplay between family and business systems. However, this topic is largely overlooked in family business research. In this qualitative study of goals and goal formulation processes among 76 organizational members across 19 family firms, we identify goal diversity as a direct consequence of the overlap between the family, ownership, and business systems. We found that goal diversity is expressed more strongly in the proximity of generational transitions, triggering social interaction processes through which organizational members contrast their goals. Our findings suggest that different types of social interactions lead to different behaviors, with familial social interactions being more effective than professional social interactions in managing goal diversity toward the formation of collective commitment to family–centered goals.

Product Innovation in Family versus Nonfamily Firms: An Exploratory Analysis

How family firms manage product innovation remains an overlooked topic in existing business research. This happens despite the fact that family businesses play a crucial role across all economies, and they often use technological innovation to nurture their competitive advantage. By drawing upon the resource‐based view of the firm as well as agency, stewardship, and behavioral theories and using empirical evidence gathered through a multiple case study, the paper studies how and why the anatomy of the product innovation process differs between family and nonfamily firms. The analysis shows that family businesses differ from nonfamily ones as regards product innovation strategies and organization of the innovation process.

Ability and Willingness as Sufficiency Conditions for Family‐Oriented Particularistic Behavior: Implications for Theory and Empirical Studies

Distinguishing sufficient conditions from necessary conditions is crucial in both theoretical and empirical studies. We propose that the sufficiency condition for family involvement to produce family‐oriented particularistic behavior in a firm requires the presence of both ability and willingness. We demonstrate how the omission of this sufficiency condition in commonly used theoretical models employed to explain how family involvement affects firm behavior can result in theoretical limitations and empirical indeterminacy. Finally, we discuss how considering both ability and willingness can lead to better theory, more generalizable empirical findings, and help explain heterogeneity among firms with family involvement.

Strategic innovation and new product development in family firms: an empirically grounded theoretical framework

Purpose – This study aims to investigate the relationship between the presence of the family variable within a business enterprise and the managerial factors affecting the success of new product development (NPD). This can be structured into three research questions: What is the relationship between the presence of the family variable within a business enterprise and the managerial factors affecting the success of NPD activities? How the managerial factors affecting the NPD process are faced in family firms? Which are the main differences (e.g. strengths and/or weaknesses) in dealing with the managerial factors affecting the NPD process between family and non‐family firms?Design/methodology/approach – The study employs a grounded‐theory and case‐study approach to investigate the relationship between the presence of the family variable within a business enterprise and the managerial factors affecting the success of NPD. The starting point is an in‐depth literature review on the managerial factors different...

The Temporal Evolution of Proactiveness in Family Firms: The Horizontal S-Curve Hypothesis

We extend prior work on proactiveness in family firms by examining the relationship between firm age and proactiveness. Specifically, we propose an S-shaped effect of aging of family firms on proactiveness. Additionally, we provide a contingency perspective by considering the moderating role of the dispersion of managerial control among family members. Using a sample of Swiss family firms, we find that proactiveness first declines, then increases, and finally decreases again as the family firm ages, and that this relationship is steeper when the managerial control is dispersed among multiple family members.

A Closer Look at Socioemotional Wealth: Its Flows, Stocks, and Prospects for Moving Forward

We supplement the recent work by Miller and Le Breton–Miller by evaluating more closely two related theoretical aspects of the socioemotional wealth concept: (1) the stocks and flows of noneconomic benefits and how they influence family firm behavior; and (2) the use of prospect theory as an umbrella concept. We, thus, contribute to family business research by delineating a number of important research questions related to these two theoretical aspects that need to be addressed if theories of family firm behavior and performance are to move forward.

The Impact of Family Involvement on SMEs’ Performance: Theory and Evidence

By complementing agency theory with behavioral assumptions, we explore the effects of family involvement on small and medium enterprises’ (s) performance. We identify three separate dimensions of family involvement and hypothesize nonlinear, direct, and interaction effects on the performance of an . The evidence on 787 suggests that an inverted ‐shaped relationship exists between family ownership and performance, and ownership dispersion among family members negatively affects performance. Balancing family and nonfamily members in the top management team () is found to be beneficial to s’ performance, but the family ratio in the becomes crucial only at high levels of family ownership.

The study of organizational behaviour in family business

Family businesses (FBs)—enterprises that are significantly influenced by family members and kinship ties—are ubiquitous and play a crucial role across all world economies. Because of the embeddedness of family and business systems in FB, these organizational forms are theoretically distinct from their non-family counterparts. Curiously, FBs have been largely overlooked in the organizational behaviour (OB) literature. The limited available research at the interface of OB and FB highlights the importance of FB as a unique context to advance OB theories, and of OB as a promising discipline to increase our understanding of FB. In a selective review of literature focused on the four topics of values and goals, leadership and power, trust and justice, and conflict, we discuss how insights from the general theory of communal and exchange relationships open exciting avenues for research at the FB-OB interface. Rich fruits of intellectual harvest await scholars who focus on behavioural research in FB.