Josip Kotlar

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.

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.

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.

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.

Family Governance at Work Organizing for New Product Development in Family SMEs

A growing body of research is concerned with how family governance influences innovation. Yet the organizational issues that family governance engenders for innovation processes have been largely overlooked. In a study of six small- and medium-size family enterprises, we investigate the design decisions that fit family and business logics to create high-performing new product development programs. Our results reveal three design principles concerning teams, leadership, and incentives that diverge from customary approaches of organizing for new product development, adding important dimensions to the determinants of successful new product development in small- and medium-size family enterprises.

Is social capital perceived as a source of competitive advantage or disadvantage for family firms? : an exploratory analysis of CEO perceptions

Although psychological perspectives suggest that executives’ perceptions do matter when it comes to predict the outcomes of strategic processes, little research has dealt with CEO perceptions in family firms. In this article we focus on the social capital resources of family firms and investigate which resources are perceived as competitive (dis)advantages and which factors affect the differences in perceptions among family firms’ CEOs. We rely on a multiple case study that involved seven family firms operating in the transportation industry. The case study analysis shows that a number of advantages and disadvantages are commonly perceived by family business CEOs in relation to both internal and external dimensions of social capital and that difference in perceptions exist related to the social influences produced by interactions between family and business.

Conflicting selves : family owners’ multiple goals and self-control agency problems in private firms

This study examines the self–control agency problems associated with family ownership in private firms. Theorizing that family owners’ inner conflicts between economic and non–economic goals lead to competing preferences in the allocation of financial resources, we predict that the relationship between financial slack and firm profitability is contingent on factors that increase the potential salience of either economic or noneconomic goals for family owners. Accordingly, our findings suggest that self–control is a separate source of agency costs in private firms and that family ownership is not as crucial as owners’ goals in predicting the impact of financial slack on firm profitability.

Sector-Based Entrepreneurial Capabilities and the Promise of Sector Studies in Entrepreneurship:

The influence of the industrial sector is a long-standing assumption in entrepreneurship studies, yet the mechanisms through which the industrial sector shapes entrepreneurial phenomena and the processes through which entrepreneurial actors interact with sectors to prospect, develop, and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities remain largely under-theorized and little understood. We critically reexamine the notion of “sector” in entrepreneurship research, advancing a more dynamic view of the industrial sectors captured by the concept of sector fluidity and identifying three approaches to move the sector more prominently onto the “front seat” of entrepreneurship theory and research. Defining sector-based entrepreneurial capabilities and examining their importance to advance current understanding of industry-specific determinants, processes, and outcomes of entrepreneurship, we set out an agenda for further research aimed at advancing sector studies in entrepreneurship.

Blending in while standing out : selective conformity and new product introduction in family firms

Research on the conformity-distinctiveness trade-off in family firms is divided. Examining the product innovations of Spanish manufacturing firms between 1998 and 2012, we hypothesize that family and nonfamily firms conform selectively and are driven by different motivations. Family firms align with their closest peers to avoid social losses while nonfamily firms conform to firms with different attributes to pursue social gains. Moreover, propensity to conform leads to more substantive organizational responses in family firms. We contribute to understanding how family firms navigate the conformity-distinctiveness trade-off, unveil the cognitive dimension of conformity, and address the puzzling evidence on family firm innovation.

Exploring the Effect of Family Control on the Characteristics of SMEs in Northern Italy

We studied the effect of family control on the characteristics of small- and medium-sized enterprises located in the Northern Italian province of Bergamo. The analysis included aspects such as demographic characteristics, cost and productivity of labour, financial ratios, and the performance of 745 SMEs. Family-controlled firms emerged as a predominant organizational type in almost all the industries and a number of relevant differences were found between family-controlled and non-family firms. In sum, family-controlled firms in our sample outperformed their non-family counterparts in terms of return on sales, return on equity and return on assets.