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As women are still promoted to C-level roles at far lower rates than men, this paper examines whether there is a clear and direct relationship between women's formal roles and the effect of the socio-cultural context on their participation in strategic decisions in family businesses.

This study adopts a quantitative research design and logistic regression to analyze empirical data from a randomly selected sample of 800 firms in Sardinia.

In general, the results show that women's formal roles and participation in the decision-making process are not related, except in a specific sector (agriculture and farming), and that the local context plays an unquestionable role in terms of replicating local customs and traditions in the workplace.

Although limited by the sample of firms in the same territory, this study shows that women participate in strategic decision-making both when tasked to by virtue of their leadership role and when playing a minor role by way of implicit decision-making power. However, the sector can hinder women's participation, especially when strongly rooted in local culture.

The study shows that the socio-cultural context has a strong influence on women's involvement in strategic decision-making, highlighting the “silent” way women make the most relevant decisions. Therefore, this study questions whether it is still relevant to discuss the formal role of women or whether it is more pertinent to investigate their explicit or implicit power in making strategic decisions in family businesses.

The paper aims to analyse the case of “Sa Panada srl”, a tiny Sardinian family firm, to provide intriguing insights for the study of entrepreneurial orientation in a context that is anchored in an apparent and hostile past.

An exploratory approach is used to analyse a single-case study through a narrative approach. Data were analysed through the hermeneutic trio consisting of three phases: (1) explication – contextualisation, reconstruction and synthesis of the history; (2) explanation – identification, description and understanding of the meaning of the narrative; and (3) exploration – discussion and identification of theoretical and practical implications.

The study introduces novel best practices that help enhance entrepreneurial orientation in a difficult setting based on change reluctance and past anchored culture.

Theoretically, the study contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial orientation, internationalisation and innovativeness of family firms embedded in a hostile context. The main drawback of the study is its explorative analysis of a single case.

For practitioners, the research proposes the case study as a best practice able to inspire successful resilient behaviour and decisions for other firms that experience daily challenges.

The study elucidates the relevance of individual factors of family owners as endogenous elements that can balance contextual obstacles with ambitions of growth and development.

This study aims to explore the main drivers that family businesses possess to strengthen their resilience during the COVID-19 crisis.

This study followed a quantitative method analysis through a multiple regression analysis based on a sample of 570 Italian family firms.

The results showed that job quality and innovation significantly stimulate family firms' resilience during the COVID-19 crisis.

The study has several academic implications. Firstly, the study contributes to family firm research by extending the studies on factors that significantly influence the concept of resilience; secondly, the work contributes to crisis management, offering suggestions to help other firms exceed the COVID-19 crisis.

The present study clarifies the role of family firms' resilience, and it reveals how job quality and innovation play a meaningful role during the COVID-19 crisis.

This study investigates the relationship between Total Quality Management (TQM) and internationalization in small family firms, focusing on the role that the dimensions of TQM may have as strategic resources to implement successful internationalization strategies.

Building on the Resource-Based View (RBV), the study is based on a single case study, and data were gathered through in-depth interviews with the family owner-manager.

Findings show that small family businesses that aim to operate in international markets have to invest constant attention toward TQM by developing strategies able to achieve excellence. More in detail, for small and medium family firms, TQM represents a driver to internationalize. Therefore, family-owned managers sustain that internationalization success depends on the increasing attention exhibited toward the following dimensions of quality, specifically on three main pillars: relationships, professionalization and long-term vision, which appear to be strategic resources in international markets. An interpretive model is proposed with a set of propositions.

Scholarly implications are threefold. First, findings contribute to the RBV theory by introducing the long-term vision as a strategic resource able to activate a loop between TQM and internationalization success. Second, results contribute to TQM literature, highlighting that it represents a driver to internationalize, and following a long-term perspective, its enhancement is stimulated by internationalization. Third, findings contribute to family business studies, underlining the relevance done of owners on professionalization as a strategic resource to ensure excellence and obtain success in overseas markets. The main drawback refers to the fact that results stemmed from one single case study. Further studies could deepen the analysis on multiple cases.

The proposed case study represents a best practice and can stimulate other entrepreneurs and consultants to invest in TQM to thrive internationalization strategies.

The current study, elucidating that TQM is the driver to stimulate family business internationalization, proposes an interpretive model to study TQM and internationalization in small and medium family firms.

This study aims to explore how customer-perceived quality is affected by innovation in traditional products in the bread, bakery and pastry industry. The study assesses whether innovating traditional products is an effective strategy, especially in traditional industries.

This study followed a quantitative method of analysis. Data were gathered from a sample of 200 Italian bread consumers and analysed using a two-pronged correlation analysis, and two hypotheses were tested using Pearson’s correlation.

The results showed the negative relationship between customer-perceived quality and innovating traditional products in traditional industries embedded in closed contexts.

The study has several academic implications. First, by focusing on the traditional food industry, the study contributes to the theory by answering the call for research in this field; second, the findings contribute to the embeddedness construct and, third, to the studies of customer-perceived quality and to the literature on innovation.

The findings are particularly interesting for entrepreneurs and consultants in traditional industries who make decisions on whether it is better to innovate or to remain anchored to tradition.

The present study clarifies the shadowy side of innovation in traditional industries, such as the bread, bakery and pastry industry, and it reveals how tradition plays a meaningful role in those sectors.

The purpose of this paper was to study the effect of botanical origin on the characteristics of single-flower honeys (assa-peixe, coffee, eucalyptus, laranjeira and vassourinha), polyfloral (silvestre), extrafloral (sugarcane) and honeydew (bracatinga) during storage.

The honeys were stored at 14 °C, and the analysis of water activity, color, absorbance, rheological behavior and microscopic analysis were performed during 6 months (T0, T30, T60, T90, T120, T150 and T180 days); quantification of sugars (fructose (F) and glucose (G)), moisture (M), F/G and G/M ratio only at T0.

All honeys showed changes during storage, and sugarcane honey stood out for presenting greater crystallization, influenced by the high content of glucose and fructose. Coffee honey showed the least crystallization. The crystallization of honeys influenced the increase in water activity, Newtonian viscosity, color and absorbance. The composition of the honeys directly influenced the crystallization process during storage.

Crystallization is a natural process that occurs spontaneously in honey. Thus, the knowledge of the crystallization rate of honeys from different origins (botanical and geographical) during storage, is of great importance and interest for the industry, beekeepers and consumers, since each type of honey crystallizes in different ways and periods.