Title: An innovation gap between family and non-family businesses: a case study of post-transition economies

Authors: Polona Tominc; Karin Širec

Addresses: Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia ' Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia

Abstract: We empirically explore the differences in innovativeness between family and nonfamily businesses in selected post-transition economies. The data for Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia are derived from the 2018 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Adult Population Survey. We build a binary logistic regression model. Results suggest that family businesses are less likely to be innovators as compared to the non-family businesses but, after including a combination of individual and environmental/institutional factors into the model, being a family business is not significant when comparing innovative and imitative businesses. We also find that gender, age, education, perceived opportunities and perceived entrepreneurial skills are not significant indicators of business innovativeness within the investigated sample.

Keywords: innovativeness; family businesses; post-transition economies; global entrepreneurship monitor; individual characteristics; institutional framework conditions.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2021.117112

European Journal of International Management, 2021 Vol.16 No.2, pp.294 - 312

Received: 10 Mar 2019
Accepted: 16 Jan 2020

Published online: 18 Aug 2021 *

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