Title: Search breadth, open innovation and family firms: evidences in Italian mid-high tech SMEs

Authors: Fernando G. Alberti; Stefania Ferrario; Fabio Papa; Emanuele Pizzurno

Addresses: Institute for Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness, LIUC – Università Cattaneo, Corso Matteotti 22, 21053 Castellanza (VA), Italy ' Institute for Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness, LIUC – Università Cattaneo, Corso Matteotti 22, 21053 Castellanza (VA), Italy ' Institute for Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness, LIUC – Università Cattaneo, Corso Matteotti 22, 21053 Castellanza (VA), Italy ' Institute for Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness, LIUC – Università Cattaneo, Corso Matteotti 22, 21053 Castellanza (VA), Italy

Abstract: The debate around the different management practices of family firms, compared with non-family ones, is largely supported by important theoretical reasons and a huge stream of literature. Recent debates focus on contrasting innovation management practices of family and non-family companies, where a few evidences are still available. Along this line, the present paper aims at examining and understanding the determinants which can explain whether there are divergences in the search breadth of family and non-family firms. Our explorative analysis, focused on Italian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) competing in mid-high tech industries, generally confirms some of the outcomes emerging in other preliminary studies in this field. In particular, we show that Italian family-owned SMEs have a narrower search breadth than their non-family counterparts. Furthermore, our preliminary findings point out the role of some other factors considered as relevant (e.g., generations, time and cost for R&D projects, etc.).

Keywords: family firms; family businesses; non-family firms; open innovation; search breadth; Italy; small and medium-sized enterprises; R&D; research and development; mid–high tech SMEs; family-owned SMEs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTIP.2014.066710

International Journal of Technology Intelligence and Planning, 2014 Vol.10 No.1, pp.29 - 48

Published online: 06 Feb 2015 *

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