Social capital and innovation in family firms: The moderating roles of family control and generational involvement

Abstract

Drawing on the social capital literature, we examine whether the co-existence of distinct yet interacting social groups, namely family and non-family members, creates the conditions for increased family firm innovation. In particular, we theorize that family and non-family social capital have a joint positive effect on family firm innovation and this joint effect is stronger than the single effects of family and non-family social capital. In addition, we predict that while family control has a positive moderating effect, generational involvement has a negative moderating effect on the above-mentioned relationship. With supportive empirical results, our research makes important contributions to the existing literature.