Organizational Ambidexterity in Family-Managed Firms: The Role of Family Involvement in Top Management

Nadine Kammerlander,Holger Patzelt,Judith Behrens,Christian Röhm

doi:10.1177/0894486520961645

Abstract

Organizational ambidexterity is vital for family firms’ long-term success, yet we still lack sufficient insights into the role of family involvement in top management in this context. Building on research on family firm innovation and diversity, we argue there are curvilinear relationships between family involvement in top management and exploration, exploitation, and organizational ambidexterity. We further propose that these (inverse) U-shaped relationships are affected by family CEOs’ family-centered noneconomic goals. Multisource data on 109 family-managed firms support most of our hypotheses and provide a nuanced understanding of how diversity within top management affects family firms’ innovative behavior.

Highlights

Organizational ambidexterity—that is, the simultaneous pursuit of exploratory and exploitative innovation (Goel & Jones, 2016; Raisch & Birkinshaw, 2008)—has been identified as an important driver of firm performance in general (Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004) and of family firm performance in particular (Stubner et al, 2012)
Treating family membership as an important diversity aspect in family businesses, we argue that top management teams with similar shares of family and nonfamily members pursue lower levels of exploitation (U-shaped relationship of family involvement) because diverse opinions and viewpoints on how to achieve exploitation hinder quick decision making
In contrast to the specific activities related to exploration decisions, we argue that activities related to exploitation make the separation aspect of diversity more salient for such innovation decisions

Summary

Introduction

Organizational ambidexterity—that is, the simultaneous pursuit of exploratory and exploitative innovation (Goel & Jones, 2016; Raisch & Birkinshaw, 2008)—has been identified as an important driver of firm performance in general (Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004) and of family firm performance in particular (Stubner et al, 2012). Research on family firm ambidexterity has highlighted the peculiarities of ambidexterity in such firms (Dolz et al, 2019; Hughes et al, 2018), stemming, for instance, from the specific resources and agency cost constellations in family firms, which influence their willingness and ability to engage in organizational ambidexterity (Veider & Matzler, 2016). While some research argues and shows a positive association of family member involvement and organizational ambidexterity (Stubner et al, 2012), other research argues for a negative influence of family

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