Entrepreneurial orientation and Palestinian family-owned businesses: does governance or geographic location make a difference?

PurposeThis article explores the effect of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), governance and geographic location on the performance of Palestinian family-owned businesses.Design/methodology/approachThis quantitative study uses data collected in the fall of 2022 from 180 Palestinian-owned family companies - 90 were located in Palestine and the other 90 were located in the USA. Using R software, multiple regression analysis was employed to examine the relationships between the constructs that formed the study's conceptual framework.FindingsThe results indicate that (1) the risk-taking, innovation and proactiveness dimensions of EO have a significant positive impact on the performance of Palestinian family-owned businesses; (2) Governance moderates the EO dimensions of risk-taking and proactiveness on the performance of Palestinian family-owned companies and (3) geographic location does not moderate the relationship between the EO and performance of Palestinian-owned family businesses.Originality/valueThe current intensified conflict in Palestine warrants exploring the role Palestinian family-owned businesses worldwide can play in rebuilding the local economies of Gaza and the West Bank. The following years will be crucial in determining how proactive risk-taking and innovation will support regional recovery and augment the entrepreneurial and reinvestment capacity of diasporic and home country-based Palestinian family-owned firms. Thus, our study into factors that might enhance these businesses' performance and growth potential is pertinent. A further contribution of this study is new insight into the particularities of Palestinian family-owned businesses, augmenting general theories associated with ethnic and diasporic entrepreneurship.