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The purpose of this study is to test the thesis that the family firm’s success hinges on effective strategic knowledge management (SKM) capability coupled with an entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Contingency theory holds that entrepreneurial success is contingent on strategic capabilities and resource orchestration theory explains how well family firms nurture capabilities to structure, bundle and leverage resources that define competitive advantage (CA). This study combines these two theoretical viewpoints to propose the effects of EO and SKM capability on CA to achieve successful performance in family firms.

This study uses a hybrid approach applying structural equation modelling (SEM) and deep-learning artificial intelligence (DL-AI) analysis to survey data on 268 Malaysian family firms.

SEM results confirm that CA mediates the relationship between innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking dimensions of EO and firm performance. Autonomy and competitive aggressiveness have no bearing, however. The relationships among innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking with CA and performance are positively moderated by SKM capability, becoming more potent at higher levels. Moreover, four additional DL-AI models reveal the necessity of specific EO dimensions and the interacting effects of EO–SKM capability to influence CA and to attain performance success subsequently.

This study theorizes and presents two new boundary conditions to a knowledge-based theory of the family firm and its firm performance. First, CA mediates the relationship between EO and performance; and second, SKM capability moderates the relationships between EO and CA and between EO and family firm performance. Methodologically, this study uses DL-AI to embrace non-linearity and prioritize predictor variables based on normalized importance to produce greater accuracy over regression analysis. Hence, DL-AI adds methodological novelty to the knowledge management and family firm literature.

Developing and implementing strategies to maximize profitability is a fundamental challenge facing manufacturers. The complexity of orchestrating resources in practice has been overlooked in the operations field and it is now necessary to go beyond the direct effects of individual resources and uncover different resource configurations that maximize profitability. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Drawing on a sample of US manufacturing firms, multiple regression analysis (MRA) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) are performed to examine the effects of resource orchestration on firm profitability over time. By comparing the findings between analyses, the study represents a move away from examining the net effects of resource levers on performance alone.

The findings characterize the resource conditions for manufacturers’ high performance, and also for absence of high performance. Pension and retirement expense is a core resource condition with R&D and SG&A as consistent peripheral conditions for profitability. Moreover, although workforce size was found to have a significant negative effect under MRA, this plays a role in manufacturers’ performance as a peripheral resource condition under fsQCA.

Accounting for different resource deployment configurations, this study deepens knowledge of resource orchestration and presents findings that enable manufacturers to maximize profitability. An empirical contribution is offered by the introduction of a new method for examining manufacturing strategy configurations: fsQCA.

Knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial firms succeed when they can better marshal their knowledge resources into productive advantages, necessitating entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and knowledge management (KM) processes of knowledge acquisition, application, conversion and protection. However, configurations of EO and KM processes are unaccounted for in extant theory, and the differences between the operating context of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial firms are unclear. Therefore, this study investigates the configurational combination of EO and KM processes in two different contexts as native and immigrant entrepreneurial firms.

Drawing on the knowledge-based theory, the authors apply fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and necessity analysis of QCA (NCA) to data from Malaysian native (N = 185) and immigrant (N = 146) service-oriented entrepreneurial firms.

The results demonstrate that immigrant entrepreneurial firms’ performance relies on knowledge processes of knowledge acquisition and application to ensure intelligent effectuation of EO; but for native entrepreneurial firms, the critical knowledge processes for performance success are knowledge conversion and protection. The NCA suggests that EO is critical for both firms; however, conjunctional causations differ based on KM processes.

This study enriches the emerging knowledge-based theory of the entrepreneurial-oriented firm by advancing the theory and conversation by revealing how EO, KM processes and context link in which the profile of the EO–performance relationship is configurationally dependent. The study advances the knowledge-based theory of entrepreneurially-oriented firms to account for entrepreneurship in context.

While extant literature has advanced our understanding of senior and middle managers in corporate entrepreneurship, studies have only recently attended to the role of non-managerial employees (NMEs). These organizational members bring ideas, resources and energy to the pursuit of innovative opportunities, yet the determinants of their entrepreneurial behavior are poorly understood.

The authors performed a systematical literature review on the subject of NMEs in corporate entrepreneurship to identify gaps and recommend an agenda for future research.

The review revealed gaps regarding (1) the distance of NMEs from decisions on corporate strategic intent, (2) agentic choices made by NMEs to use their subject matter expertise for their employers' benefit, and the influences of (3) job characteristics and (4) organizational infrastructural support of entrepreneurial behavior.

The authors present a theoretical framework and directions for future research.

Going beyond the traditional approach of formal and informal institutions as antecedents of entrepreneurship (directly) and development (indirectly), this paper seeks to explore knowledge institutions as a necessary input for entrepreneurship and the development of societies.

Institutional economics lenses are utilized to observe other factors (e.g. the number of R&D staff and researchers from the public sector) that involve laws and socialization processes, which at the same time create knowledge useful for entrepreneurs and society. These ideas are tested through a sample of 281 observations from 17 autonomous communities and two autonomous cities in Spain. The information coming from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), Ministry of Economics, Industry, and Competitiveness, and INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadística), was analyzed through 3SLS, which is useful for a simultaneous equation strategy.

Knowledge institutions such as the number of R&D staff and researchers from the public sector are found positively associated with entrepreneurship, which is a factor directly and positively linked to economic development across Spanish regions.

The findings help the operationalization of other institutions considered in institutional economics theory and its application to entrepreneurship research. Moreover, the results bring new insights into the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship in the public sector, in which the institutional analysis is implicit.

This paper is about equity crowdfunding syndicates as a form of entrepreneurial finance and looks specifically at the lead investors' human capital and their ability to raise funds.

The authors develop regressions on a unique hand-collected dataset of 178 lead investors taken from the US-based platform AngelList.

Results indicate that lead investors' specialized human capital has a positive effect on their syndicate fundraising performance. However, it does not find a significant effect of general human capital. It also finds that specialized human capital is mediated by the reputation of the lead investor on the platform.

This study extends human capital theory in the crowdfunding context by providing a more comprehensive portrait of human capital and in doing so, shifts the focus from an entrepreneur to an investor perspective, an approach much neglected in the crowdfunding literature.

This study advances the current knowledge on crowdfunding as it is one of the first to understand syndicate investment as an innovative and alternative platform-based financial channel. It also contributes to the current debate on the role of human capital in crowdfunding and more generally to entrepreneurial finance.

Investigation of family firm radical innovation is burgeoning but far less prevalent than studies of family firm innovation in general. Concurrently, studies repeatedly report that family firms exhibit mostly conservative and incremental innovation rather than more radical ones. This is unfortunate because without radical innovation, family firms risk a competency trap in which long-term competitiveness is lost to more innovative rivals. This situation has led to urgent calls among scholars to explicitly acknowledge the heterogeneity of family firm innovation and to understand the conditions for family firm radical innovation.

A systematic review of 51 papers categorized into four scholarly conversations build the foundation for a critical discussion of each line of inquiry.

The authors analyze 51 leading articles and identify four persistent theoretical positions: (1) RBV and capabilities, (2) agency and stewardship, (3) behavioral agency and socioemotional wealth, and (4) the ability and willingness paradox. The authors identify key research problems and research questions needing urgent scholarly and present a framework that captures their complementary and competing assumptions to enable rigorous future research.

To galvanize and spearhead future research efforts, this paper provides a critical analysis of our understanding of family firm radical innovation with a specific emphasis on the theoretical assumptions at the core of existing investigations and the eight most important research questions in need of answers.

Microfoundations have received increasing attention in several management disciplines. This study aims to outline the uniqueness of microfoundations research in innovation, look at where it comes from and where it is going and provide rich opportunities for future work.

To advance research in this area, this study conducted a systematic literature review combining mixed methods and creating a mapping framework to take stock of progress in the innovation microfoundations research field.

This study shows how distinct subfields have formed around key ideas expressed in subsets of seminal articles, shedding light on the relational nature of knowledge creation – uncovering these subfields’ characteristics, evolution and future trajectories.

This study develops a framework that reflects a critical analysis of the microfoundations of innovation within dos three research levels – individual, process and interaction and structure – and highlights the research gaps and potential research questions for future research that reflect the broad spectrum of approaches in the microfoundations of innovation literature.