Innovation and Family Firms

This chapter aims to perform a systematic review of the most recent publications in innovation within the field of family business. A comprehensive systematic search in Clarivate Analytics Web of Science through December 2017 allowed the authors to retrieve 389 peer-reviewed articles. After careful screening, the final sample was reduced to 152 documents from 72 journals. The characteristics of the scientific journals, the diverse topics currently addressed, and the main lines of research were identified. The results revealed the existence of a highly diversified field of research with a wide variety of topics, receiving a growing interest and not limited to specialized journals nor a reduced number of researchers. All of this is indicative of an advance in the field to consolidate innovation as a high potential area of study. This allows researchers to reflect on the current status and research opportunities to contribute to the development of this field.

Competitive Strategy Based on Flexibility

This chapter is intended to analyze the extent to which businesses in Spain have adopted several flexibility-manufacturing practices. Specifically, this study explores firstly, sample-based differences in the results of comparative family firms versus nonfamily firms concerning practices for implementing manufacturing flexibility. Secondly, heterogeneity in this implementation process within different groups of family firms was explored. The gathered evidence suggests that the main differences with respect to practices for implementing manufacturing flexibility appear when specific characteristics surrounding family firms and related to the role of the CEO and family involvement in the management of the firm are considered.

Sustainable Balance Scorecard as a CSR Roadmap for SMEs

The purpose of this chapter is to review and establish a theoretical framework that creates a systematized method to help SMEs willing to adopt a sustainability strategy. There is an increasing interest in SMEs to incorporate CSR and CS as a strategy, but they need a tool that would lower the entry barrier for SMEs struggling to adopt said objectives, such as the sustainable balance scorecard (SBSC). The chapter aims to provide a support tool and guide for SMEs interested in developing a CSR and sustainable strategy. To develop it, a literature review was performed, and the approach proposed by Hansen and Schaltegger was deemed to be feasible for adoption and implementation. As a result, an SBSC hierarchy is proposed for SMEs. Further evidence is necessary to validate the current proposal.

Gender and Entrepreneurship in Developing Economies

This chapter begins with a brief exploration of the importance of entrepreneurial activity as a driver of global economic growth. The importance of entrepreneurship in developing economies is examined as are the traits, motivations, and drivers of entrepreneurs and the economic, social, cultural, legislative, and regulatory circumstances that encourage and in some cases discourage entrepreneurial activity. The impact of entrepreneurship training and education on encouraging women entrepreneurs is examined, the relative importance of women entrepreneurs is examined, and emphasis is placed on the relatively greater difficulties that are faced by women entrepreneurs particularly in regards to obtaining funding for starting new ventures. Opportunities are identified that may useful for policy makers, investors, and those that may seek to promote social entrepreneurship and economic growth in developing economies.

Family Offices

The objective of this chapter is to deepen the knowledge of family offices (FOs) as an instrument that business families have to help promote entrepreneurship and social responsibility activities. With this purpose, the concept and evolution of FOs will be developed. When faced with this purpose, we find the difficulty of accessing information about the FO at a global level, since confidentiality is one of the main characteristics by which families choose this type of structure. Because of this situation, publications on this subject are scarce, and we are forced to resort to international examples from the USA, Europe, Asia, and Latin America to facilitate greater knowledge of the FOs.

Strategic Behavior in Family Firms

Previous research emphasizes that the participation of the family in business operations is the source of resources and capabilities that conditions the strategic behavior of the family firm. This influence has been recognized as “familiness.” However, this definition is contextualized from static reasoning that ignores the effect of family dynamics on the behavior and value generation of the family-owned business. Prior literature has recognized that the family influence has a dynamic character based on the idiosyncratic process of knowledge management that manifests itself in the company, dynamic familiness. This family capability is shaped by family organizational routines through the family influence and aims to increase its knowledge portfolios for the strategic use of its resources. This chapter addresses the relationship between family influence and the process of learning and knowledge management. The analysis of this relationship allows assessing how family influence can promote the generation of family organizational routines based on knowledge management processes.

Transparency of Information in Spanish Family Businesses and Its Role in Online Reputation Management

Corporate reputation is one of the main assets to compete successfully in the markets today, which requires its proper management. One of the main factors that determine the level of reputation of a company is transparency, due to its effects on the acquisition of the necessary information in order to maximize the effectiveness of stakeholders´ decisions. In order to know the current situation of information transparency provided by the family businesses of Castile and León, a study has been carried out, analyzing the degree of compliance with the requirements established by Royal Decree Law of 18/2017 of 24 November in 35 family businesses in the region. This law establishes the social and environmental information that companies with over 500 employees are legally obliged to provide.

Corporate Social Venturing

This chapter has three purposes: first, to briefly outline corporate venturing as a sub-field in corporate entrepreneurship that recently has gained prominence in research on family-owned businesses (FOB); second, to highlight the missing social dimension in research on FOB that focuses on corporate venturing, conceptualize this added social dimension as corporate social venturing (CSV), and to empirically illustrate CSV with well-known Mexican FOB engaged in CSV; and third, to propose an agenda for researching CSV done by FOB.

Skills Development Practices and Engineer Turnover

This chapter investigates the skills development practices and their relationship with engineer turnover in IT services companies (henceforth ITSC) from Tunisia. It presents a qualitative analysis of data that derived from a number of interviews conducted with human resource managers of these companies. Based on the findings, four human resources management (HRM) practices were identified that seemingly contribute to skills development in the firms investigated, which are recruitment, training, inter-project mobility, inter-firm cooperation. The findings indicate that these practices can also reduce engineer turnover rates. The chapter provides fresh insights into HRM practices of Tunisian companies, which has not attracted much attention yet.

Succession in Family Business Through Authentic Leadership

Family businesses are the kind of organizations that are characterized by overlapping systems of ownership, management, governance, and family values. In family firms, the family is the main asset of the business, and family members are strictly bound to the firm. Due to the dominance of a specific family, the success of the company is closely linked to the proper administration of the duality in the industry, the existence of family and business simultaneously. This fact distinguishes family firms from other companies. Furthermore, managerial and ownership priorities of the owner family are maintained through intergenerational succession. And, the existence of multiple stakeholders and their conflicting demands necessitate a transparent and authentic leadership approach in this delicate process. In this chapter, it is proposed that in family firms, intergenerational succession is more convenient and less painful, in case an authentic leader who gives importance to high levels of awareness, transparency, and morality is in power.