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Family social capital
. In order to capture how family members encourage and help the
respondents, we adapted items initially designed to measure altruism to capture the support
of family members (Becker and Vance, 1993). Besides, we also combine the items which
addressed a unique resource that might be available to the family business in terms of social
standing in the community, support from extended family, loyal customers, goodwill in the
business community, family security, and family independence (Sorenson and Bierman,
2009).
3.5 Control Variable
First, we controlled firm size and age. In family business, the linkage between family
members and employees are inextricably woven, but this relationship may depreciate with
size and age. For example, small firms may favor informality and simplicity—bureaucracy
and hierarchy are eschewed to encourage bonding. Moreover, “size” alone explains
significant variation in revenue (Chrisman, Chua, and Steier, 2005; Rutherford, Kuratko, and
Holt, 2008).
Second, we measured environmental dynamism using the multi-item scale of Miller and
Dröge (1986). This Likert-type scale is used frequently in the strategy literature (e.g., Miller,
1988; Priem, Rasheed, and Kotulic, 1995). Our interest was in the CEO’s perceptions of the
level of dynamism, because executives act on their perceptions.
Third, we controlled for CEO duality (i.e., whether the CEO is also the chairman) in
this study. CEO preferences are expected to affect firm strategy and how firm encage with
innovation activities, especially if the CEO is powerful vis-`a-vis the board. Following
Haynes and Hillman (2010), we regard CEO duality as managers who have great influence
on major strategic decisions.
Fourth, we control family involvement. Prior studies suggest that family involvement
may affect firms’ innovation capabilities because it allows the family to modify firm
behavior (Chrisman, Chua, Pearson, and Barnett, 2012). In order to control its effects on
NPD we consider family involvement in our model. Moreover, because family influence
may vary from unilateral control of the strategic direction of a firm to one where strategic
control is left entirely in the hands of professional management (Schulze and Gedajlovic,
2010), we conceptualize family involvement as a continuous construct.