Ana Pérez-Luño

Does Family Involvement in Management Reduce the Risk of Business Failure? The Moderating Role of Entrepreneurial Orientation

This study explores the question of whether—and under which circumstances—family involvement helps avoid business failure. We hypothesize that it is family involvement in management, rather than ownership, which reduces the risk of failure during economic downturns; however, this effect is negatively affected by the firm’s entrepreneurial orientation (EO). We argue that EO hinders reaching consensuses on and commitment to family-centered goals, which are focused on long-term survival. We analyze 369 manufacturing firms in Spain from 2007 to 2013, and find that family involvement in management reduces the risk of business failure, but this effect decreases as EO increases.

Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise's Entrepreneurial versus Market Orientation and the Creation of Tacit Knowledge†

The ability to create tacit knowledge is important to the competitive advantage of firms in general but is critical to the survival and growth of small and medium‐sized enterprises ). Consequently, strategic orientations that facilitate tacit knowledge creation, especially in hostile environments, are important factors that can enhance competitiveness. This paper shows that while an entrepreneurial orientation () and environmental hostility are positively related to an cultivation of tacit knowledge, market orientation () is negatively related to tacit knowledge. Additionally, we find that in benign environments, the relationship between an and tacit knowledge becomes more strongly negative than in hostile environments.

Innovation and Performance: The Role of Environmental Dynamism on the Success of Innovation Choices

Innovation has become the cornerstone for achieving competitive advantage and is currently one of the principal topics of debate in the management literature. Innovations can be internally generated or can be adopted from external sources. Innovations also vary in terms of degree of radicalness. In this study, we examine the nature of innovation (in terms of where it is generated and its degree of radicalness) and an external environmental factor (dynamism) to identify the types of innovation that are more likely to succeed in different environments. Organizations expend substantial financial and human resources innovating. While some innovations succeed in enhancing organizational performance, many fail and may affect performance adversely in the short term. A sample of 381 Spanish firms was used to analyze how organizations, in order to be competitive, need to identify the appropriate type of strategies-in terms of innovation generation versus adoption, and extent of radicalness-that are consistent with the environmental conditions that they operate in. First, we find that in dynamic environments, the more radical and internally generated the innovations, the higher the companys perceived and objective performance. Second, we find that in stable environments, the less radical and more internally generated the innovations, higher the companys objective performance. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Innovation and imitation as sources of sustainable competitive advantage

The present study fills some of the void in the literature on the concept and phenomenon of innovation and imitation. Basing our arguments on features that the literature indicates are characteristics of innovation, we delimit the concepts of innovation and imitation. Using these features and considering a company’s degree of entrepreneurial and market orientation, we devise a typology of companies ranging from radical innovators to strict imitators. We also argue that some key factors and the choice of appropriate strategy determine whether innovative and imitative companies can obtain and maintain their sustainable competitive advantages.

Coping with Diversity in Alliances for Innovation: The Role of Relational Social Capital and Knowledge Codifiability

Alliances are increasingly considered a key element for innovation, especially in knowledge‐intensive firms. While this is true, the mere membership to alliances does not explain innovation performance, and thus the alliances characteristics that determine high performance must be examined. This research address the question of how the diversity of partners in a certain alliance for innovation affects innovation performance, and how this influence can be moderated by certain characteristics, such as the relational dimension of social capital and the type of knowledge shared among partners. The empirical analysis of a sample of 90 biotech companies shows that there is an inverted U‐shaped relationship between alliance partner diversity and innovation performance and confirms the positive moderating effects of relational social capital and knowledge codifiability. These findings contribute to the current research on alliances for innovation by providing empirical evidence on why some alliances perform better than others. Also, the results suggest that the study of alliance partner diversity, as a determinant of alliance performance, should not be addressed in isolation.

Risk, proactivity and uncertainties as determinants of the decision to imitate or to innovate

This paper empirically tests the impact of uncertainties, proactivity and risk taking on the decision to innovate or to imitate and on an objective and a subjective measure of the companys performance. Based on a survey of 399 companies, and using the companys size and age as control variables, our empirical results support the view that proactivity is the most important determinant of the decision of whether to innovate or imitate. Also, we find that the companys performance is not conditioned by the decision of innovating or imitating, but is rather determined by the companys size, proactivity and risk taking.

The role of tacit knowledge in connecting knowledge exchange and combination with innovation

ABSTRACT Using the Resource-Based View, this paper aims to provide a better understanding of the effect of knowledge on innovation. With this general aim in mind, we relate knowledge’s nature (tacit vs. explicit) and process (e.g. knowledge exchange and combination) to innovation. Using a sample of 105 innovative firms, we find a positive linear effect of tacit knowledge on innovation and a curvilinear relationship between knowledge exchange and combination and innovation. We also find a moderating effect of tacit knowledge on the curvilinear relationship between knowledge exchange and combination and innovation. We speculate on our findings and connect them to previous theory.

Vertical technology alliances: The impact of technological depth and breadth on alliance governance structure

New high-tech firms have extensively used strategic alliances with large incumbent partners to access complimentary resources and capabilities and to finance their technology projects. However, due to their initially weak bargaining position, they tend to relinquish a disproportional amount of control rights to the larger firm that finances the R&D alliance. This raises the question: How can new high-tech firms, e.g. biotech firms, leverage their knowledge resources to retain control in alliance with larger partners, e.g. pharmaceutical incumbent firms? And, does alliance experience add to their leverage? Focusing on equity and non-equity types of alliance governance, we examine how the firms depth and breadth of technological knowledge resources impact the choice of governance structure. Our findings suggest that high-tech firms with deeper technological resources are better able to retain control when allying with the larger firm. The relationship is stronger when the new firm has more alliance experience.