Clay Dibrell

This entry utilizes national measures of cultural and institutional norms to explore ways North American family businesses uniquely compete compared to non-family businesses. The similarities and differences among countries within North America are explored using two topics that uniquely apply to family businesses: transgenerational succession and family social capital. In each case, national culture (measured through Hofstede’s six dimensions) and the strength of national institutions (measured through the intellectual property rights index) highlight the impact these two dimensions have on creating heterogeneous family businesses unique to North America. This entry provides valuable insights for practitioners and scholars when considering how North American family businesses compete. Further insights can be drawn by applying the present framework to other aspects of family businesses and North American culture. Cultural variations help explain differences in why and how businesses compete.

Using a framework that intersects strategic management and institutional economics, we show how differences in institutional environments and firm resources influence different types of strategic change (i.e., internationalization, innovation, and diversification) in family firms. We review 193 quantitative and qualitative articles to identify differences in strategic change and their performance consequences among family firms and between family and nonfamily firms. We conclude that institutional environments and firm resources impact not only the extent family firms engage in different types of strategic change but also their performance and long-term survival.

In this paper, we explain and examine how engaging in part-time entrepreneurship (creating and managing side businesses while remaining employed for wages in existing organizations) uniquely positions individuals to exhibit innovative behavior in employee roles. To study this phenomenon, we integrate the literatures on entrepreneurial learning, knowledge and learning transfer, and employee innovation. We hypothesize that part-time entrepreneurship provides an opportunity for individuals to acquire knowledge and skills conducive to enacting innovative behaviors as employees. Multilevel regression analysis of a sample of 1,221 employee responses across 137 organizational units provides evidence to support our positive transferal hypothesis. Further, we find that individual differences in goal orientations and work-unit climates for innovation strengthen these relationships.

Drawing on complementary theoretical perspectives, we investigate whether and to what extent family-influenced firms differ from their nonfamily counterparts in terms of the relationship between managerial attention to natural environmental issues and concomitant environmental actions. Using data from letters to shareholders and the KLD database, we investigate 97 firms in five polluting industries. Our findings indicate that family firms positively moderate the relationship between top managers’ attention to natural environmental issues and proactive environmental action. Conversely, nonfamily firms demonstrate less proactive environmental action as their attention to environmental issues increases, suggesting greenwashing. We argue that attention and action behaviors in family firms are intimately connected with their desire to preserve socioemotional wealth and indicate a lower propensity to greenwash, whereas nonfamily firms’ short-term financial objectives may motivate a different response pattern.

Drawing from the behavioral theory of the firm, we examine the role of a long–term orientation in decision making at publicly traded, family–influenced firms (FIFs). We advance a view of the family as part of a firm's dominant coalition and the resulting effects of a family–influenced coalition on the FIF's decision making. Using a sample of publicly traded firms, our findings indicate that FIFs’ decision making reflects a focus on a long–term orientation, manifested in the greater accumulation of slack resources, less strategic risk taking, and lower bankruptcy risk than non–FIF firms.