Family Business Internationalisation: The Role of Entrepreneurship and Generation Involvement

Abstract

Effective entrepreneurship helps a firm in exploiting its present competitive advantage along with exploring various future competencies and opportunities. It is included in both starting a new business or strategic renewal of the existing business. However, while conducting research on the field of entrepreneurship, studies were also done on the factors which have contributed to the entrepreneurship in an organization. Corporate entrepreneurship is a critical factor in establishing the success of family firms. Family firms are those firms in which one or more members of one or more families have significant vested interests in ownership. The present study aims towards creating a relationship between entrepreneurial orientation with generational involvement and internationalization. The study suggests that entrepreneurial orientation within the organization increases its performance. Entrepreneurial orientation has a significant role in increasing acquisitive and experimental learning in an organization which in turn increases its performance. However, the case is different for family firms. The long term success of the family firm will not always be dependent on the five dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation. It has been found that there is a positive relation between the entrepreneurial orientation and the survival of family firms. When a relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and generational involvement is established, it is seen that the entrepreneurial orientation has a positive impact on the growth of a second generation family business. On the other hand, firms having high family ownership are expected to internationalize more as compared to the firms which have low family ownership. Finally, the firm's entrepreneurial orientation has a positive relation with internationalization.