Cristina Bettinelli

Boards of Directors in Family Firms: An Exploratory Study of Structure and Group Process

Offering an integrated approach, this study examines the relationship between board composition and board processes in Italian family businesses. The potential beneficial effects of outside board members on board processes such as effort norms, cohesiveness, and use of knowledge and skills are highlighted. Using a sample of 90 family business directors, it was found that boards with outside directors are perceived as more committed to the board’s tasks (i.e., higher effort norms) and more cohesive. Boards of older companies with outside directors are percevied as more capable of using knowledge and skills.

Family Entrepreneurship: a developing field

In this monograph we focus on family entrepreneurship, a developing field that studies entrepreneurial behaviors of family, family members and family businesses by taking into account the possible interplays among them. We offer a conceptualization together with a review of the literature as well as a research agenda of this field. Our conceptualization of family entrepreneurship makes it possible to disentangle complex relationships that characterize the field while the review of the literature offers some examples of how entrepreneurial behaviors can be affected by the family business context. The proposed research agenda offers some guidelines for future research that should advance our knowledge of family entrepreneurship.

How small-medium enterprises leverage intangibles during recessions: evidence from the Italian clothing industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on how investments in research and development (R&D) and advertising affect the performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during recessions. Design/methodology/approach – Contingency theory is applied to a data set of 376 Italian clothing SMEs during the period 2000-2010 to test whether investment in R&D and advertising impacts financial performance differently when contingent factors (such as market share, financial leverage and business model change) are taken into account. Findings – Empirical results confirm that market share and leverage moderate the effects of investments in R&D and advertising (i.e. intangibles) on performance, and also that changes in business models are an important contingent factor that explains performance. Specifically, the paper ascertains that a novelty-centered business model, together with investments in intangibles, positively affects performance during recessions. Originality/value – This study offers an in...

Researching Entrepreneurship in Family Firms

This paper is the first in a JSBM special issue on entrepreneurship in family firms, i.e., the firm‐level entrepreneurial activities and attitudes that occur when a family is considerably involved in an established organization. We provide a systematic literature review of 109 articles written on this growing issue, based on a framework that highlights the antecedents, outcomes, and processes of entrepreneurship in family firms. We also offer a brief overview of the contributions of each of the papers in this issue and conclude by outlining a research agenda for future activities in this area of inquiry.

Business Model Innovation: From Systematic Literature Review to Future Research Directions

This book presents a systematic literature review of 156 published papers on business model innovation (BMI). The aim is to identify and integrate the different theoretical perspectives, analytical levels, and empirical contexts in order to deepen understanding of this complex phenomenon. The authors conduct an inductive thematic analysis based on an informal ontological classification that identifies 56 key themes. Within each theme, discussion focuses on thematic patterns, potential inconsistencies and debates, and future directions and opportunities for research. The book makes a number of significant contributions to the field. First, it offers a deeper understanding of the evolution of research on BMI through an ontological map that identifies the key thematic areas in the literature. Second, a multilevel model is developed that clarifies the concept of BMI by identifying its drivers, contingencies, and outcomes. Third, the authors identify clear and specific directions for further research and offer suggestions on research design, creating an informative road map for the future. The book will be of value both to scholars and researchers and to practitioners.

Systematic Literature Review

The first chapter of this book introduces the importance of studying business model innovation (BMI), the methodology we applied to study the subject, and specific statistics about the literature published in academic and practice-oriented journals in the last 15 years. Specifically, this chapter offers an overview of the processes followed for our systematic literature review (SLR) and the rigorous protocol that includes the three-stage procedure (i.e., planning, execution, and reporting) suggested by Tranfield et al. (Br J Manag 14:207–222, 2003). Gathering the most influential pieces on SLRs, this chapter also offers some hints for conducting a successful SLR and illustrates the benefits associated with doing so. In addition, this chapter describes the thematic and the informal ontological classification we adopted to analyze the 156 papers included in our systematic literature review. Thus, the first section of this chapter defines what is meant by an SLR. The second section offers an overview of the tasks of an SLR. The other sections present the process followed for the thematic and ontological analyses that are central to this work. The final section provides some statistics on the 156 papers included in our SLR, underlining specific information about the journals that published the articles, the methodological approaches applied in the papers, the industries included in the studies, the geographical contexts, and the disciplines that contributed to the understanding of BMI.

Family entrepreneurship : rethinking the research agenda

Introduction: What We Know About Family Entrepreneurship (Cristina Bettinelli and Kathleen Randerson) Part I: Intersection Family Business and Entrepreneurship 1. Partitioning Socioemotional Wealth to Stitch Together the Effectual Family Enterprise (Saras Sarasvathy, Ishrat Ali, Joern Block and Eva Lutz) 2. Corporate Family Entrepreneurship, the Seven Circumstances (Salvatore Sciascia and Cristina Bettinelli) 3. Social Family Entrepreneurship: Social issues and stakeholder salience in small- and medium-sized family firms (Giovanna Campopiano, Alfredo De Massis and Lucio Cassia) 4. Internal Corporate Venturing in Multi-Generational Family Enterprises: A Conceptual Model (Justin Craig, Robert Garrett and Clay Dibrell) 5. The Impact of Domestic Drivers and Barriers on the Entrepreneurial Start-up Decision (Rob Lubberink, Vincent Blok, Johan A.C. van Ophem and Onno S.W.F. Omta) Conclusion to part I (Giovanna Dossena) Part II: Intersection Family Business and Family 6. The Process of Identity Construction in The Family Business: A discursive psychology perspective (Richard T. Harrison and Claire M. Leitch) 7. Keeping it in the Family: Financial rewards in family firms (Sara Carter and Friederike Welter) 8. Understanding Entrepreneurial Behaviors in Family Firms: Does the socioemotional wealth model explain differences? (Jonathan Bauweraerts and Olivier Colot) 9. Entrepreneurial Family Firms: A research note on their qualifying characteristics (Angelo Renoldi) Conclusion to part II (Giovanna Dossena) Part III: Intersection Entrepreneurship and Family 10. Family Context and New Venture Creation (Sharon M. Danes) 11. The Role of Networking in the Growth Process of Entrepreneurial Family Firms (Sarah Dodd Drakopoulou, Alistair Anderson and Sarah Jack) 12. Habitual Entrepreneurship and the Socioemotional Wealth of Dynastic Family Enterprise: A synthesis of arguments and directions for future research (Robert VDG Randolph, James Vardaman and Hanqinq Fang) 13. Typology of Interactions and Data Content in Qualitative Family Case Study Research (Celine Barredy) Conclusion: What we need to know about Family Entrepreneurship (Alain Fayolle)

Multilevel Analysis of Business Model Innovation

This chapter introduces a multilevel analysis of BMI that flows from the thematic and ontological analyses of the 156 papers included in the systematic literature review. Five different levels of analysis emerged from the studies: individual (e.g., entrepreneurs and employees); team (e.g., top management); firm (e.g. companies and organizations), network (e.g., partnerships and consortia), and the firm’s institutional environment (e.g., industry, market, sector, or society). These levels of analysis are discussed in order to improve our understanding of BMI and to stimulate future research. The tables and the multilevel issues examined in this chapter reveal that most existing knowledge on BMI is concentrated on a single level of analysis at a time, moreover the majority of the papers use the firm as the level of investigation. Accordingly, this chapter contributes to the development of the BMI literature, highlighting for each level of analysis, the related research gaps, and offering specific suggestions—a road map for future research—to address each of these knowledge gaps.

Conclusions and Research Agenda

This chapter concludes our work by summarizing all the results derived from the analyses illustrated and discussed in the previous chapters. This chapter contributes to the knowledge of business model innovation (BMI) in three ways. First, we review the integrative framework related to the drivers, contingencies, and outcomes of BMI that was complemented with a deep analysis of theoretical perspectives and future research. Second, we propose an integrated multilevel (individual, team, firm, network and institutional) and multidisciplinary (strategic management, organizational studies, marketing, entrepreneurship, and practice-oriented) framework for BMI. Third, these perspectives of analysis facilitate the development of a comprehensive research agenda that can stimulate future studies on BMI from different perspectives, such as, a deeper BMI conceptualization, a wider and mixed usage of research methods, more integrative studies able to integrate level of analysis and a multidisciplinary understanding of BMI. These future contributions can improve the knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of BMI, and particularly of its drivers, outcomes, and contingencies.

BMI from the Perspective of Five Disciplines

This chapter categorizes the 156 papers included in our systematic analysis according to the disciplines to which they belong. Our thematic and ontological analyses identified five different disciplines dealing with BMI: strategic management, organizational studies, marketing, and entrepreneurship. In addition to these, we have the practice-oriented group of papers. This chapter is organized as follows, each section considers one of the five different disciplines and first analyzes how BMI is treated in it by reviewing the main research questions, the theoretical perspectives, and the methodologies employed in the papers considered in our systematic literature review. Specifically, we will discuss the papers most cited in each field and their contribution to the knowledge on BMI. Finally, the chapter presents the categorization of the papers according to their main perspectives and levels of analysis (illustrated in the fourth chapter of this book), providing a specific research agenda for future research.