The Role of Family Management and Management Control Systems in Promoting Technological Innovation in Family SMEs

Abstract

This paper seeks to resolve the controversy regarding the relationship between family management and technological innovation outcomes. In contrast to prior studies, we focus on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and go beyond the traditional input-output statistical analysis, by introducing the mediating effect of the use of management control systems (MCS). We also further examine heterogeneity among family firms, studying whether a greater family management influences, directly or indirectly, on technological innovation outcomes. Our results from a data consists of 199 Spanish family-owned small and medium enterprises (FSMEs) were not able to indicate a significant direct influence of the level of family management on technological innovation outcome but supported the notion that the utilization of MCS mediated the above relationship.