Abstract

At a stage of life cycle maturity, the unique advantages of family influence are often outweighed by organizational conditions of conflict, risk-aversion, and inertia which makes it difficult to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. Guided by the proposition that a positive culture enables the entrepreneurial spirit to be preserved over time, this study focuses on examining the cultural dynamics between family and business social systems to advance our understanding of the heterogeneity of mature family firms in terms of entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Specifically, it bridges the link between family commitment and firm-level EO by considering long-term orientation and stewardship climate to operate as organizational culture mechanisms. From a quantitative study of 208 family firms, the findings provide evidence for EO to be supported by the proposed serial mediation process. A family’s strong commitment toward the business thus seems to stimulate EO only when passing through long-term-oriented priorities among the firm’s dominant coalition and an organizational environment characterized by collective stewardship.

摘要

在生命周期成熟的阶段，家庭影响的独特优势往往被冲突、风险规避和惰性等组织条件所抵消，这使得创业机会难以利用。本研究以积极的文化使创业精神能够随着时间的推移而得以保持这一命题为指导，重点研究家族和企业社会系统之间的文化动态，以促进我们对成熟家族企业在创业导向（EO）方面的异质性的理解）。具体来说，它通过将长期定位和管理氛围作为组织文化机制来运作，在家庭承诺和公司层面的 EO 之间架起了桥梁。通过对 208 家家族企业的定量研究，调查结果为 EO 提供了证据，证明提议的连续调解程序得到支持。因此，只有在公司主导联盟和以集体管理为特征的组织环境中通过长期导向的优先事项时，家族对企业的坚定承诺似乎才能刺激 EO。