Family Businesses Overcoming the COVID-19 Crisis with Innovation: An Exploratory Analysis of the Jewelry Retail Sector in Spain

Abstract

Innovation is a trending topic in many disciplines but has a particular focus when it is studied in family businesses (FBs) due to their unique behavior in decision-making. Moreover, there is a gap in research on how these family businesses overcome economic crises by applying innovation. The main purpose of this paper is to provide empirical insight regarding this gap in an understudied sector, such as the Jewelry retail sector. This research was conducted in five cases, taken as examples of what these companies did, in terms of innovation, to overcome the COVID-19 crisis situation. This was considered sufficient, given the homogeneous structure of the sector and the exploratory nature of the research. The results revealed that different strategies caused them to obtain different results and clearly showed that FBs that used innovation during the crisis had better financial results. This paper contributes to the understanding of how FBs overcome economic crises by applying innovation. The implications for this type of business are also included.