Investigating the new product portfolio innovativeness of family firms connects two important topics that have recently received considerable attention in innovation and family firm research. First, new product portfolio innovativeness has been identified as a critical determinant of firm performance. Second, research on family firms has focused on the questions of if and why family firms are more or less innovative than other organizational forms. Research investigating the innovativeness of family firms has often applied a risk‐oriented perspective by identifying socioemotional wealth (SEW) as the main reference that determines firm behavior. Thus, prior research has mainly focused on the organizational context to predict innovation‐related family firm behavior and neglected the impact of preferences and the behavior of the chief executive officer (CEO), which have both been shown to affect firm outcomes. Hence, this study aims to extend the previous research by introducing the CEO's disposition to organizational context variables to explain the new product portfolio innovativeness of small and medium‐sized family firms. Specifically, this study explores how the organizational context (i.e., ownership by top management team [TMT] family members and generation in charge of the family firm) of family firms interacts with CEO risk‐taking propensity to affect new product portfolio innovativeness. Using a sample of 114 German CEOs of small and medium‐sized family firms operating in manufacturing industries, the results show that CEO risk‐taking propensity has a positive effect on new product portfolio innovativeness. Moreover, the analyses show that the organizational context of family firms impacts the relationship between CEO risk‐taking propensity and new product portfolio innovativeness. Specifically, the relationship between CEO risk‐taking propensity and new product portfolio innovativeness is weaker if levels of ownership by TMT family members are high (high SEW). Additionally, the effect of CEO risk‐taking propensity on new product portfolio innovativeness is stronger in family firms at earlier generational stages (high SEW). This result suggests that if SEW is a strong reference, family firm‐specific characteristics can affect individual dispositions and, in turn, the behaviors of executives. Therefore, this study helps extend the knowledge on the determinants of new product portfolio innovativeness of family firms by considering an individual CEO preference and the organizational context variables of family firms simultaneously.

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In making a decision to enter into a long-term employment relationship with a firm, job seekers often compare their needs and values with the perceived organizational characteristics of the firm. In the case of family firms, the communication of family influence can be a unique factor in shaping beliefs about firm attributes. Family influence is often associated with trustworthiness, security, and stability. However, family influence is also associated with inflexibility and resistance to change. Using the idea of person-organization fit, we hypothesize that although family influence attracts job seekers in general, applicants who value conservation or self-transcendence are particularly attracted, while applicants who emphasize openness to change or self-enhancement are less attracted. Furthermore, we propose that the attractive effects of family influence are more pronounced in more hostile economic environments. We find evidence for our hypotheses using a conjoint experiment and 5,600 assessments of family influence nested within 175 job seekers.

This research examines how and why family firm brands (compared to nonfamily firm brands) affect consumers. We argue that a brand’s family firm status acts as a signal to consumers who share category-based beliefs about family firms doing good due to preserving their socioemotional wealth. This perception in turn is a fair and positive appraisal in the mind of consumers (in the sense of indirectly benefiting others with their spent financial resources) that elicits happiness. In an experimental study, we show that family firms are being perceived by consumers as acting more supportive towards internal and external stakeholders and that these perceptions in turn result in higher consumer happiness. In other words, our results indicate that communicating a brand’s family firm status might have a positive indirect influence on consumer happiness through the perception of doing good. On the other hand, our results suspect that a brand's family firm status might also trigger beliefs (not part of our study) with more negative indirect effects on consumer happiness.