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This work aims to offer a better understanding of the inevitable challenges related to the digital transformation in the family-owned low-tech SMEs, examining the role assumed by familiness in this specific context. To this end, it examines the main factors that influence the adoption and implementation of digital technologies in the family-owned low-tech SMEs.

The study uses a multiple case studies approach, by investigating the case of family-owned low-tech SMEs operating in the winery sector and located in the South-Italy area.

Based on the empirical evidence, findings show how familiness influence the digital transformation of family-owned SMEs and highlight three main factors – individual, process and organization – relevant for the introduction and use of digital technologies in the productive and innovative activities of these organizations.

This paper fills the research gap existing in the literature on the family business. Firstly, it focuses on the digital transformation phenomenon and underlines how familiness, within family-owned low-tech SMEs, can differently influence the firm's innovation processes primarly based on the use of digital technologies oriented to enable business improvements. Then, it identifies diverse dimensions that can act as “barriers” or “facilitators” for adopting advanced digital technologies within the organizations here examined.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate social capital's effect on family business development in selected family media firms.

The statistical population includes 100 individuals who run a family business in this industry. Eighty individuals are selected as the research sample through the stratified random sampling method. The data are collected using a questionnaire. The authors used structural equation modelling method for data analysis.

The results indicate that social capital affects the development of family businesses in media firms. According to the results obtained from the structural equation test, the effect of the relational dimension of social capital on trust and the effect of the cognitive and structural dimensions of social capital on trust are supported, while the effect of the relational dimension of social capital on commitment as well as the effect of the cognitive dimension of social capital on trust are not supported.

This research could help family firms in media industries improve trust and commitment by paying attention to different aspects of social capital. Besides, it shows that even the impact of relational and cognitive social capital, respectively, on commitment and trust, are not supported; these two could affect trust and commitment, respectively.

The paper is among the first studies that investigate family firms in media industries. Besides, the relationships between relational, cognitive and structural aspects of social capital and trust and commitment are rarely studied in the literature as two determinants of family business development.

The authors aim to demonstrate the impact of allowing for unequal intra-household distribution of resources on income poverty and income inequality.

The paper applies a collective consumption model to study the intra-household distribution of resources in Visegrád countries (V4). It utilises subjective financial satisfaction as a proxy for indirect utility from individual consumption to estimate the indifference scales within couples instead of the traditional equivalence scale. The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2013 and 2018 data are applied.

This study’s results indicate substantial economies of scale from living in a couple that are generally higher than implied by the commonly applied equivalence scale. The sharing rule estimates suggest that at the mean of distribution factors, women receive a consumption share between 0.4 and 0.6; however, some of the results are close to an equal sharing of 0.5. The female consumption share rises with her contribution to household income. Regarding income poverty and inequality, the authors show that both these measures might be underestimated in the traditional approach to equal sharing of resources.

The authors add to the empirics by estimating indifference scales for Czechia (CZ), Hungary (HU), Poland (PL) and Slovakia (SK), countries that have not been involved in previous research.

This paper aims to examine the effects of socio-emotional wealth importance (SEWi) in family firms and family firm-specific HR practices, namely professionalization and bifurcation bias, on their entrepreneurial orientation (EO).

The paper surveyed 133 small and medium-sized family firms in the USA. The respondents were recruited through Prolific Academic.

When SEWi is low, a family firm becomes more similar to a non-family firm, thereby enjoying the benefits associated with EO. When SEWi is high, a family firm leverages the unique resources and capabilities specific to family firms. Moderate SEWi levels are associated with lower EO levels. Additionally, the results support the argument that professionalization (involving non-family managers, formalization and decentralization) fosters EO, while bifurcation bias hinders its development.

Unlike previous studies, this paper posits a non-linear, U-shaped relationship between SEWi and EO. It contributes to the field by empirically investigating the effects of professionalization and bifurcation bias on EO in family firms.

Using the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II dataset, we examine the role that household income plays in the emergence of consumer-oriented start-ups by individual (solo), family-based (family), and non-family based start-ups (team). In particular, we address the research question: Does household income impact firm emergence, and if so, is emergence impacted differently based on start-up configuration? Our results indicate that household income does have a significant impact on average firm emergence, as well as on emergence growth rates for solo and family firms, playing an especially significant role for family firms. Furthermore, we found that household income is not a significant predictor of start-up activity completion for teams. Results from our study reinforce the extant literature on the benefits of starting a firm with teams, and suggests that these enterprise types may provide a more stable platform on which to launch a start-up. Implications of these findings and opportunities for future research are offered.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of family involvement in ownership and governance on the quality of internal auditing.

Leveraging a hand-collected data set of listed family firms from 2014 to 2020, this study uses regression analyses to investigate the impact of family ownership, family involvement on the board, family CEO and the generational stage of the family business on the quality of internal auditing.

The results provide evidence that family ownership is positively associated with the quality of internal auditing, while later generational stages of family businesses have the opposite effect. Additional analyses reveal that the presence of a sustainability board sub-committee moderates the relationship between generational stages of family businesses and the quality of internal auditing function.

This paper does not consider country-institutional factors and other potentially family-related antecedents or governance factors that may affect the quality of internal auditing.

The results are informative for investors and non-family stakeholders interested in understanding under which conditions family-related factors influence the quality of internal auditing functions.

This study offers fresh evidence regarding the relationship between family-related factors and the quality of internal auditing and board sub-committees that moderate such a relationship in family businesses.

Using the family business succession, resourcebased view of firms, familiness, and organizational clan literatures, this article develops a model based on the ability of the family business to use familiness, a specific bundle of attributes deriving from a family’s culture, as a competitive advantage for the family firm. In particular, this resource-based framework of family business shows how familiness can distinguish between family firms that succeed beyond the second generation and those that do not. Implications for future research are discussed.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between heterogeneous collaborative networks and firm performance, using the resource-based view (RBV) and its extension through the knowledge-based view (KBV) as theoretical lens. Moreover, the authors examine family management and intellectual property rights (IPRs) as contingent factors that enhance the effectiveness of heterogeneous collaborative networks in achieving superior firm performance.

The hypotheses are developed and checked by using a panel data sample of 10,985 firm-year observations from 1,766 Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 2007–2016.

The results indicate that heterogeneous collaborative networks positively influence firm performance. Furthermore, the positive impact of these innovation networks on firm performance is reinforced by high levels of family management, and such effect is even stronger when there exists high levels of IPRs.

This research is the first, to our knowledge, to provide important new insights into the manner in which the effect of both family management and IPRs have the potential to amplify the performance gains attained from heterogenous collaborative networks.

This paper aims to examine the influence of family involvement in TMTs on product innovation efficiency and the contingent role of technological collaborations, combining insights from the resource-based view and the behavioral agency model.

This study empirically develops and tests the hypotheses using a longitudinal sample of 3,852 firm-year observations from Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 2006–2016.

The results reveal that family involvement in TMTs positively influences product innovation efficiency. The results also show that such positive effect is weakened as technological collaborations increase, and varies according to the partner type with whom the cooperation agreement is established. Specifically, the findings indicate that collaboration with suppliers appear to be the least detrimental for product innovation efficiency in family firms, followed by collaborations with customers and research organizations.

Family firms should consider appointing family members to their TMT to improve product innovation efficiency. Moreover, to enhance the effect of family management on product innovation efficiency, family managers should carefully select their technological partners.

This study is one of the first studies to theoretically explain and empirically demonstrate that family involvement in TMTs is a critical antecedent of product innovation efficiency and that technological collaborations moderate such link. Moreover, this study goes further in revealing that distinct types of partners have a differential moderating influence on the family involvement in TMTs-product innovation efficiency relationship. The results can be used to help managers and practitioners to boost innovation performance as well as to assist policymakers to design firm-level innovation policies to improve family firms' competitiveness.