Family enterprise and technological innovation

Abstract

Family enterprises in China have significant impact on China’s social and economic development. Yet did technological innovation in Chinese family enterprise play a role on this impact? We examine the role that technology innovation played in the rise in importance of Chinese family businesses. We analyze the impact of family enterprises on companies’ technological innovation through both family ownership and family management involvement. We further scrutinize how Chinese family-owned business internationalization strategies affected their technological innovation activities. The authors show that family ownership without family management involvement has a negative relations with companies’ technical innovation. We further demonstrate that family ownerships with family management involvement have a positive relations with enterprises’ technical innovation. Our study provides some effective measures to increase the investment in firms’ technical innovation and minimize the disadvantages of family business. The research result has practical significance in the governance of family enterprises.