管理学最新文献

Our paper builds a bridge between the emerging strand of research on public administration under populist rule and the established literature on delegation to independent regulatory authorities (IRAs). We focus on Italy, a critical case in Western Europe, which between 2001 and 2025 experienced six coalition governments dominated or strongly influenced by populist parties of different ideological orientations. Findings highlight that delegation to IRAs is remarkably resilient once institutionalized, even under sustained political contestation. Despite repeated populist participation in government since the early 2000s, Italian IRAs have not been subject to systematic de-delegation or statutory retrenchment. However, the preservation of formal independence has not implied the absence of means for political control. Our analysis shows that populist governments have systematically relied on political appointments. Interestingly, political appointments have not been driven by partisan loyalty or overt politicization. Instead, the intervention of populist parties has operated along a different dimension of political control that has received less attention in delegation theory: the specialization of appointees. Populist governments have displayed a preference for appointing IRAs' board members with lower levels of domain-specific specialization, privileging generalist profiles over specialists.

While prior research suggests that family ownership can significantly facilitate sales and innovation, empirical findings often overlook the nuanced differences in innovation inputs between family and non-family firms. We address this gap by examining the extent to which family firms are able to use absorptive capacity by creating knowledge internally and collaborating with external partners to enhance their innovation. Utilizing micro-level data from 9266 of the most innovative UK firms from 2006 to 2016, we employ a multi-level analysis to examine how different knowledge inputs—such as internal investments in knowledge and external collaborations at the regional and international levels—influence innovation outputs in family and non-family firms. Our findings contribute to the innovation and family business literature by providing a clearer understanding of the innovation dynamics within family firms compared to their non-family counterparts. Additionally, we offer managerial insights and outline policy implications that could foster knowledge transfer in family firms. These recommendations take into account that regional and international knowledge collaboration serves as a boundary condition for family firms to outperform their non-family counterparts.

Despite the notable body of research, the family firm (FF) internationalization literature has overlooked the role of innovation strategies in explaining FFs' export performance. We focus on the innovation through tradition (ITT) strategy—specifically, the degree to which a firm leverages its firm-specific, mature (i.e., past) knowledge in the innovation search and recombination process. This strategy is particularly relevant for FFs as it can have ambivalent effects on export performance. On the one hand, it may ease the liability of foreignness; on the other, it could exacerbate it, creating tensions that firms must carefully navigate. Drawing from the socioemotional wealth perspective, we argue that FFs will be more prone to adopt an ITT strategy. However, the extent to which they will be able to reap the advantages or suffer the constraints of such a strategy for export depends on the particular type of family governance. Specifically, we contend that family managers will have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between the degree to which a firm leverages firm-specific mature knowledge and export intensity thanks to their direct involvement and operational control over innovation activities. Conversely, family owners lacking this direct involvement will have a negative moderating effect on this relationship. Our analyses, based on a global longitudinal sample of 134 listed firms in the automotive and pharma/biotech industries observed from 2008 to 2020, support our hypotheses. Our results contribute to the nexus of the FF internationalization and FF innovation literature streams, the ITT research in FFs, and the broader internationalization literature.

Current research on family business innovation tends to isolate individual tensions for analysis, while in reality, these tensions often arise in complex entanglements. To fill this research void, we focus on understanding how multiple tensions occur in the innovation process, how these tensions are entangled, and how they are managed. We turn to the financial wealth–socioemotional wealth [FW-SEW] trade-off, which is a useful lens for understanding how family managers address tensions in a family business. We draw on a semi-grounded multiple case study research that includes 51 in-depth interviews across six private Cypriot family businesses. To assist in interpretation and analysis and enhance the robustness of our findings, we triangulate our data with 53 observations and 288 documents across the cases. We identify three knotted innovation tensions sensed by family managers based on the FW-SEW trade-off: inclusive innovation, stewardship-focused innovation, and family routine innovation tensions. Our findings also reveal three corresponding strategies for managing knotted innovation tensions—controlled inclusivity, family-driven responsible innovation, and fostering family-business harmony—each aimed at balancing FW and SEW priorities. Our study re-conceptualizes innovation tension management in the family business as entanglements of multiple tensions that must be properly sensed and managed.