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1991). These attitudes, we believe, will be especially prevalent among family businesses in
which leaders are either family members or emotionally linked to the family. While all
family businesses are partly owned by families, not all kinds of family businesses are likely
to breed such stewardship among owners or their agents. However, when they do act like
stewards of their firms, a competitive advantage may arise (Corbetta and Salvato, 2004).
Prior studies have identified several steward-like behaviors. For example, Miller et al.
(2008) focused on longevity, the nurturing of a talented workforce and connections with
external stakeholders. Zahra, Hayton, Neubaum, Dibrell, and Craig (2008) considered long-
term orientation, aligned values between the family and business, and family identification
with the business. Eddleston and Kellermanns (2007) included reciprocal altruism,
participative decision making, and the sharing of control in firm governance. Drawing on
previous studies, we intend to decompose the managers’ orientation of stewardship into three
dimensions: decision comprehensiveness, participative governance and long-term
orientation, which reflect the values espoused by stewardship theory (Corbetta and Salvato,
2004; Miller et al., 2008; Eddleston, Kellermanns, and Zellweger, 2010) and are deemed
influential on a family firm’s involvement in corporate entrepreneurship.
2.3 Decision Comprehensiveness and Explorative Orientation
Decision comprehensiveness has been identified as the extent to which organizations
intend to be inclusive or exhaustive in making strategic decisions (Fredrickson, 1984); it is a
highly influential process involving the top management team (Miller, Burke, and Glick,
1998) and has been characterized as the in-depth analysis of multiple strategic options
(Talaulicar, Grundei, and von Werder, 2005). Underlying the arguments of the stewardship
perspective, it is believed that managers are motivated to be more diligent in
comprehensively evaluating strategic decisions (Eddleston et al., 2010). In this way, decision
comprehensiveness allows team members to look at an issue with a wider lens, broad range
of pre-existing knowledge, multiple approaches, various courses of action and numerous
decision-related criteria. By considering as many alternatives as possible, team members will
have a chance to challenge and oppose one another on task issues. The debate may
sometimes encourage members to weigh alternatives and take broader, more open-minded
strategic decisions. As a result, comprehensive decision making can help organizations to
foster creativity and broaden the scope of existing activities; i.e., managers can identify and
utilize novel knowledge from a variety of options, promote the airing of different
perspectives, and reduce the probability of complacency and narrow-mindedness of a team