A grounded theoretical approach to understanding innovation in destination marketing organizations

As competition for scarce resources increases, cities are turning toward marketing strategies to attract economic and social development. Innovation is a key component of success for destination marketing organizations (DMOs), but there is a need for additional empirical and theoretical development. Findings from this research based on analysis of interviews with 12 DMO leaders illuminate the need for (1) an innovation-centered organizational culture, (2) the ability to use external stakeholders as knowledge sources, and (3) the ability to use and develop knowledge internally. An organizational capabilities perspective is used to understand these influences. The results offer managers a road map for successful innovation implementation and benefit researchers by providing clarity into the antecedents of the innovation capability with the DMO context

Family Firm Types Based on the Level of Professionalism of the Top Management Team

This chapter responds to the calls for identifying different categories of family firms. The authors contribute to the literature by extending family firm typologies. To reach this goal, they introduce the construct of the professionalism of the Top Management Team (TMT). In order to expose the multidimensional nature of the TMT, they first review the literature on TMTs based on Hambrick’s and Mason’s (1984) demographic variables. Thus, they conduct a cluster analysis on an original dataset of 500 Italian family firms to identify the different “types” of family firms based on a multidimensional conceptualization of TMT professionalization

How does a succession influence investment decisions, credit financing and business performance in small and medium-sized family firms?

We examine the influence of succession in small and medium-sized family businesses by focusing on investment decisions, credit financing, and business performance. Using data on German SMEs, we find that the succession event affects investment behavior negatively before but positively after the transfer takes place when compared to firms without any succession intentions. With respect to performance, we show that firms’ growth rates increase after succession has taken place. Although hypothesized, we find no empirical evidence to suggest that banks tend to reject successors more often than they reject other business owners when deciding to extend credit to firms for investment purposes

In pursuit of socioemotional wealth : the affordances of social media in family firms

Social media which is characterized by easily accessible information technology applications has become ubiquitous in a range of organizations. It simultaneously presents both opportunities and challenges for organizations. Social media has influenced many aspects of organizing and has generated new ways of connecting with employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Despite the pervasiveness of social media, there is limited understanding on the impact of social media on family firms. In this chapter, we attempt to remedy the absence of theory on the organizational effects of social media use in a family business context. We utilize an affordance lens to explain how social media can offer four types of affordances to family firms that pursue socioemotional objectives – visibility, persistence, editability, and association. Overall, this chapter yields several theoretical contributions to the family business literature and to our understanding of social media affordances in family firms