Knowledge Accumulation and Its Effects on Organizational Effectiveness in Family Firms

Abstract

In the family firm, the process of knowledge accumulation is strongly influenced by the common history of the family, the relationships of trust, and the affective relationships between the family members that foster communication, which improves knowledge management and promotes learning. All of this leads to better organizational effectiveness in this particular group of firms. With the goal of verifying these relationships, we provide a series of propositions in order to pave the way for future studies to address and test these relationships of family involvement and essence, basic to the concept of the family firm, which should have distinct effects over the process of knowledge accumulation affecting the organizational effectiveness, behavior, and performance of the firm.