Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


ucin1305030185.pdf (962.84 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Innovation and the Family Firm: Leadership, Mindsets, Practices and Tensions

Ingram, Amy E.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1305030185

Abstract Details

2011, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Business: Business Administration.
Family business is a vital economic driver, yet scant attention has been paid to the antecedents of family firm performance. Similarly, family business research remains limited in addressing innovation, despite its central role in firm performance and survival. This dissertation seeks to fill these gaps by unpacking innovation in the family firm. Borrowing from various theoretical lenses, I review factors deemed to fuel family firm performance and to foster organizational innovation. Additionally, scholars posit that family firms are imbued with paradoxical tensions, stemming from the juxtaposition of competing yet complementary values and demands, which can enhance or stymie innovation. Utilizing structural equation modeling, this study develops and tests a model of family firm innovation, hypothesizing that intergenerational leadership, practices, mindsets, and tensions fuel innovative behavior. The findings explicate the complexity of innovation for family firms, confirming several of the hypothesized relationships. The results highlight the existence of paradoxical tensions and the importance of leadership embracing paradoxical thinking and fostering a climate of risk taking in order to manage these inherent tensions. Moreover, findings suggest that family business leaders need to embrace risk, failure tolerance and think paradoxically to encourage innovative behavior. Additionally, findings stress that traditionally conceptualized antecedents of innovation are more complex in this context. Whereas, resources, idea time, leadership support and authority are traditionally conceptualized as direct drivers of a firm’s innovative behavior, in this context, these antecedents are still important, yet mediated by family business leaders’ paradoxical thinking, risk taking and failure tolerance. The results contribute to extant literature in several ways. First, this inquiry extends existing organizational innovation and paradox literatures into the realm of family business. Second, it offers conceptual insights by providing a novel, valid and reliable measures of paradoxical tensions and of family firm innovation. Finally, given the undeniable importance of family business to the economy, this work provides a basis for further inquiry into family firm innovation.
Marianne Lewis, PhD (Committee Chair)
Sidney Barton, PhD (Committee Member)
Wei Pan, PhD (Committee Member)
153 p.
Management
Organizational Innovation; Organizational Paradox; Family Business; SEM; Entreprenuership; Tensions

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ingram, A. E. (2011). Innovation and the Family Firm: Leadership, Mindsets, Practices and Tensions [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1305030185

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ingram, Amy. Innovation and the Family Firm: Leadership, Mindsets, Practices and Tensions. 2011. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1305030185.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ingram, Amy. "Innovation and the Family Firm: Leadership, Mindsets, Practices and Tensions." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1305030185

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1305030185
1,339
© 2011, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Innovation and the Family Firm: Leadership, Mindsets, Practices and Tensions by Amy E. Ingram is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.