Abstract
AbstractSpin-offs refer to the creation of new firms by employees breaking off from existing firms to give birth to companies of their own. However, this phenomenon has not been predominantly observed in the context of family businesses. Employment in the family firm creates an expectation that family members will act in a manner supportive to the family business: when an employee leaves to become an entrepreneur, parent companies also have to consider whether a spin-off could eventually become a competitor. In this view, when a spin-off process occurs, the parent company could ‘gain’ a new stakeholder. Cognitive scripts that enable codified knowledge to be transferred to a spin-off may grant the new firm a substantial advantage over the parent company. Therefore, it is assumed that such a stakeholder serves purposes similar to those of the parent company, however assuming a hostile attitude towards the latter. The plausibility of this hypothesis is subsequently tested through multivariate statistical techniques.
Highlights
In the analysis and interpretation of their own cognitive structure, companies find themselves experiencing today the consequences of two processes started decades ago, which have reached full maturity
It makes little sense to talk about market research and data analysis in business economics if these processes are not aimed at a deeper understanding of an invisible resource such as knowledge, core of innovation, and emblem of the ability to evolve for the enterprise system
For the sake of brevity, our research focuses on companies born by spontaneous spin-off
Summary
In the analysis and interpretation of their own cognitive structure, companies find themselves experiencing today the consequences of two processes started decades ago, which have reached full maturity. A progressive reduction of barriers disturbs and impoverishes the circulation of knowledge among individuals from the same company, hindering access and sharing (Nelson and Winter 1982; Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995) These two processes have ended up being mutually retroactive: specialized separation has increased the efficiency of cognitive production, ensuring an output better focused on end-users and, less expensive to attain and deploy. The synthesis of the two processes, by improving the conditions of knowledge use, has ended up generating wide-ranging consequences on the development of the economic activities of the modern enterprise In this cognitivist perspective, it makes little sense to talk about market research and data analysis in business economics if these processes are not aimed at a deeper understanding of an invisible resource such as knowledge, core of innovation, and emblem of the ability to evolve for the enterprise system. This study highlights the conditions, which the parent company is recommended to monitor, that may spontaneously lead management to spin-off processes
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