Technological innovation inputs, outputs and family management: evidence from Spanish manufacturing firms

The analysis of innovation in a family business context has become an emerging topic in literature, but recent studies have resulted in mixed findings.To disentangle these inconclusive results, we propose to analyse the influence of family management on the relationship between different innovation inputs and innovation outputs. In particular, this manuscript empirically investigates whether family management exerts a moderating role on the relationship between R&D intensity, R&D personnel and social capital and the occurrence of technological innovation. To test our hypotheses, we used a conditional logistic regression based on a longitudinal sample of 1027 Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 2006-2010. The results show that family management reduces efficiency in the conversion of R&D expenses into technological innovation outcomes.