Jonas Soluk

Organizational change in family firms is crucial for their long-term survival, but such change is often constrained by the family’s attachment to existing traditions and structures. Collaborations with start-ups can contribute to overcoming such inertia by introducing new ways of working and thinking, which can foster emergent organizational change. However, little is known about how these collaborations trigger and enable emergent organizational change in family firms. Based on six cases of family firms collaborating with start-ups and 40 qualitative interviews, we uncover how start-ups reveal change opportunities, translate them into actionable practices with employees, and support the diffusion of emergent change across the organization. We identify three enablers—perceived benefit for employees, employee empowerment, and informal validation by owner-managers—that shape whether emergent change unfolds. Our findings advance the understanding of how start-up collaborations foster emergent change in family firms and contribute to the literature on organizational change and family firm innovation. © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have gained significance for all types of firms, including family firms. However, unlike other business contexts, family firms face unique challenges in adopting complex and generative technologies, such as AI. This is particularly evident when examining the heterogeneous nature of family firms distinguished by passive (i.e., family ownership) and active (i.e., family management) family involvement. Specifically, we adopt a social capital perspective and combine inductive qualitative and deductive quantitative research into a mixed-methods design. In the first step, we conduct a multiple case study of eight firms using rich data from 125 interviews and archival documents. While the case evidence shows that strong external network ties with suppliers, customers, and competitors help overcome the challenges related to AI technologies, we reveal opposing impacts of passive and active family involvement. Interestingly, our qualitative insights emphasize a negative moderation effect for passive family ownership exacerbating the challenges of AI and a positive moderation effect for active family management facilitating AI adoption. In the second step, we conduct a quantitative test of this conceptual model. On the basis of large-scale data from 1444 firms, we find empirical support that increasing strengths of external network ties with suppliers, customers, and competitors drive AI adoption. Moreover, we find support for the opposing roles of passive family ownership as a negative moderator and active family management as a positive moderator in the relationship between supplier ties on the one hand and AI adoption on the other. Our study contributes toward a nuanced understanding of the idiosyncratic challenges of AI adoption faced by different types of family firms and the role of social capital in this regard and, more broadly, to research on innovation and technology adoption in family firms. © 2025 The Author(s). Journal of Product Innovation Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Product Development & Management Association.

Corporate entrepreneurship is critical for incumbent firms to ensure continuous organizational renewal. Asymmetric buyer–supplier relationships with start‐ups, known as “venture clienting,” serve as an entrepreneurial process wherein incumbent firms integrate innovative technologies acquired from start‐ups into their processes and products to drive organizational renewal. Prior research, however, lacks insights into how incumbent firms manage these asymmetric buyer–supplier relationships and overcome the challenges that differences in culture, governance structure, and negotiating power pose. We address this gap by drawing on data from 52 semi‐structured interviews with key decision makers in a multi‐case study of six incumbent firms engaging in venture clienting. Based on the results of our cross‐case analysis, we inductively distill three maturity stages of venture clienting within incumbent firms (i.e., initiation, complexification, and pruning) and the triggers for each stage. We also shed light on the dynamic capabilities that firms develop in each maturity stage and outline the enablers that foster their development. Furthermore, we reveal how these dynamic capabilities affect corporate entrepreneurship in the incumbent firm, in terms of opportunity recognition and technology integration success.

Organizational change is crucial for family firms to survive and prosper in today’s complex business environment. However, organizational change is often impeded by the difficult trade-off between change and continuity. By providing insights into new ways of working during innovation collaborations, start-ups can help introduce change in family firms. Despite increasing scholarly attention, previous research has failed to explain the role of start-ups in organizational change in family firms and their interaction with internal actors. Based on data from six cases of family firms collaborating with start-ups (including 40 qualitative interviews), we distill the mechanisms that start-ups developed to interact with internal change agents and owning families to uncover opportunities for change, initiate new practices, and facilitate their implementation and dissemination within the family firm.

We use a sequential mixed methods approach to explore the relationship between long-term orientation (LTO), learning capabilities, and digital product innovation in firms with varying degrees of family influence. Although extant research has emphasized the relevance of digital innovation for long-term success, little is known about how firms can draw on LTO as a prevalent dominant logic and learning capabilities to create business value. More specifically, we find empirical evidence for a mediation effect with a positive association between LTO and learning capabilities on the one hand and learning capabilities and digital product innovation on the other. Surprisingly, and in contrast to our hypothesis, we find a negative moderating effect of family influence on the relationship between LTO and learning capabilities. To complement the large-scale statistical analysis and to explain the underlying mechanisms of this counterintuitive empirical result, we build on a qualitative investigation of family-influenced firms. Our qualitative findings suggest that the role of LTO and learning capabilities in the digital economy is more nuanced than previous literature suggests. Specifically, we reveal six impeding mechanisms that are associated with family influence. With these insights, we extend previous knowledge on digital product innovation, family influence, and learning as a crucial dynamic capability.

This study explores how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) build on business networks to develop dynamic capabilities that ultimately foster the adoption of non-disruptive digital technologies (DT). Multiple mediation analysis is used to test this relationship, drawing on cross-industry secondary data from 1470 British SMEs. The results reveal that SMEs rely on business networks to support non-disruptive DT adoption. This relationship is mediated by the parallel effects of three dynamic capabilities (HR, strategic planning, and marketing capabilities). However, the results do not hold for each domain-specific dynamic capability. The mediating effect is particularly driven by marketing capabilities, while HR capabilities negatively affect DT adoption. These findings highlight the underlying mechanisms by which SMEs can enhance their adoption of non-disruptive DT in their daily operations and processes, which have the potential to strengthen their value proposition.
•Internal resource constraints are a major obstacle for SMEs in adopting digital technologies and thus remaining competitive•SMEs rely on the expertise derived from formal business networks to overcome those internal resource constraints•Specific dynamic capabilities mediate the relationship between business networks and digital technology adoption•Interestingly, the mediation is particularly driven by marketing capabilities

Family-owned Mittelstand firms have often been characterized as Janus-faced, meaning they can have two contrasting sides when it comes to innovation. On one side, they are technology leaders—especially in niche markets. On the other side, they can be slow adopters, deeply rooted in tradition. Digitalization is one of the biggest innovation challenges to firms of all sizes and ownership types. Research and observations in business practice show that while some family-owned Mittelstand firms master digitalization despite limited resources and traditional industries, others lag dangerously behind. So, how can family-owned Mittelstand firms prepare for a digital future, and which familial idiosyncrasies might help them? Based on current observations and interview data, we propose a framework for how these firms can use their unique resources to tackle challenges related to digitalization. To be successful in a digital world, they must leverage their family historical capital, family collaborative capital, and family venture capital. We highlight why and how these capital types should be linked to fully leverage their potential.

Die digitale Transformation eröffnet die Möglichkeit, mit neuen Prozessen, Produkten und Geschäftsmodellen die Wettbewerbsvorteile von Unternehmen langfristig zu stärken. Gleichzeitig ergeben sich für viele Entscheider enorme Herausforderungen, die Komplexität von digitalen Technologien zu durchdringen. Das trifft insbesondere auf Familienunternehmen zu, die sich einem zunehmenden Druck ausgesetzt sehen, aus einer etablierten Branche heraus ihre eigene Marktposition neu zu erfinden. Dieser Beitrag trägt zu einem tiefgehenden Verständnis des digitalen Transformationsprozesses bei. Er beleuchtet, welche Fähigkeiten Familienunternehmen benötigen, um in der digitalen Ökonomie erfolgreich zu sein. Mit einem besonderen Schwerpunkt, unter anderem auf die Relevanz der künstlichen Intelligenz, Ansätze des „Internal Corporate Venturing“, Besonderheiten in Krisensituationen und die unterschiedlichen Rollen in Familienunternehmen, ergibt sich eine ganzheitliche Betrachtung des globalen Megatrends.

Trust plays a crucial role in interorganizational collaborations. However, barriers such as information asymmetry between prospective partners impede trust building, especially in asymmetric collaborations. Although trust and information asymmetry have been extensively studied, previous research has failed to provide insight into the mechanisms of trust transference and the circumstances under which information asymmetry is accepted and considered legitimate. This paper addresses these research gaps by drawing on data from 113 semi-structured interviews in a multiple-case study of eight intermediary-mediated innovation collaborations between incumbent firms and start-ups. Based on the results of an inductive cross-case analysis, we propose that intermediaries orchestrate the trust transference by building trust with the prospective parties and mitigating information asymmetry. Furthermore, the involvement of intermediaries leads to the acceptance of information asymmetry through its legitimation. Finally, we shed light on trust nurturing and trust repairing practices developed by intermediaries during innovation collaborations.

Few external shocks have had as severe an impact on organisations as COVID-19. To date, research on how management can respond to such a trigger event is lacking. Due to their economic relevance, family firms, which are typically resource-constrained and rely on idiosyncratic resource allocation behaviour, are of particular interest in this regard. Based on a multicase study of German family firms and building on longitudinal insights from 112 semistructured interviews, we develop a framework explaining how an external shock such as the COVID-19 pandemic can trigger a change in family firms' motives. Linking adapted motives of family firms (i.e. survival, utilisation, and opportunism) with their resource allocation behaviour during the crisis (in terms of resource preservation, resource recombination, and social boundary resource development), we reveal how digital innovation (digital process innovation, digital product innovation, and digital business model innovation) originates as a result of a process of entrepreneurial action.