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Melanie Maria Richards
Former Member
Title
Dr.
Last Name
Richards
First name
Melanie Maria
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1 - 7 of 7
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PublicationListening to the heart or the head? Exploring the “willingness vs. ability” succession dilemmaIncumbents typically seek a highly committed and at the same time highly competent child as a successor, yet such a candidate is often not available. Extant literature is unable to predict which desired attribute—commitment (i.e., willingness) or competence (i.e., ability)—is most important in this dilemma. Drawing from institutional logics literature, we suggest that the incumbent’s personal experiences, education, and cultural embeddedness, as much as firm-level situational stimuli, direct incumbent attention to either corporate logic, favoring competence, or family logic, favoring commitment, to guide decision-making about which family member to choose as a successor. We test our hypotheses using policy capturing with responses of 1,060 family firm owner-managers, and contribute to research on succession, family firms, and institutional logics.Type: journal articleJournal: Family Business Review
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PublicationAn attention-based view of family firm adaptation to discontinuous technological change: Exploring the role of family CEOs' non-economic goalsRecent studies show that managerial attention is a particularly important precursor of established firms' responses to discontinuous technological change. However, little is known about the factors that shape managerial attention-response patterns. In our qualitative study, we investigate how the attention of family firm CEOs to discontinuous technological shifts, the interpretation and decision-making processes associated with these changes, and ultimately organizations' responses are affected by CEOs' non-economic goals. Based on seven longitudinal case studies in the German consumer goods industry, we induce a process model that extends the findings of the literature on the attention-based view and helps to explain heterogeneity in family firms' adaptation to discontinuous technological change. We show that the family CEO's specific non-economic goals-such as power and control, transgenerational value, the maintenance of family reputation, the continuance of personal ties, or personal affect associated with the family business-determine whether the CEO assesses an emerging technology as relevant enough to warrant a reaction from the firm. Moreover, the family CEO's non-economic goals constrain the set of considered responses. The outcome of this sensemaking process determines the organization's response. For instance, in the specific context of this study, the goal of "family power and control" entailed an immediate interpretation of the focal trend as important for maintaining influence, and resulted in an unconstrained set of responses and, ultimately, high innovation in the new domain. Over time, family CEOs might re-evaluate the emerging trend based on their goals and adapt organizational moves accordingly. We identify and discuss how ambiguities and dilemmas may arise during this process. Our findings contribute to the literature on adaptation to discontinuous technological change and to family firm research.Type: journal articleJournal: Journal of Product Innovation ManagementVolume: 2014Issue: in press
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PublicationType: journal articleJournal: Journal of Product Innovation Management
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PublicationType: conference paper
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PublicationThe Incumbent's Dilemma when Exiting the Firm: Torn between the Family and the Corporate LogicWhen considering their own exit from the firm, incumbents are often challenged with two dilemmas. First, they need to hand over management to either a family-internal or a family-external successor. Second, they are often confronted with the trade-off between the successors' levels of ability versus willingness, particularly when relying on family-internal candidates. Based on institutional logics literature we argue that these dilemmas arise as the corporate and the family logic lead to conflicting expectations regarding which exit route and which candidate to prefer. We hypothesize that past experiences, the level of education, and situational stimuli affect incumbents' preferences for different succession candidates by focusing individual attention on either corporate or familial goals. In order to test our hypotheses we rely on responses to an exit scenario, completed by 2024 owner-managers of Swiss SMEs. Our findings contribute to literatures on entrepreneurial exit, institutional logics, and family firm succession.Type: conference paperJournal: Academy of Management Proceedings
Scopus© Citations 2 -
PublicationType: conference paper
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PublicationAttention-based View of Family Firm Adaptation to Discontinuities: The Role of Non-financial GoalsAdaptation to discontinuous innovation constitutes a major challenge for most incumbent firms. Recent research shows that this is particularly true for family-influenced firms that face specific emotional barriers to non-paradigmatic adoption of new technologies. However, little is known about variance in family firms' abilities to adapt to such discontinuous innovations. Based on seven longitudinal case studies in the German consumer goods industry we reveal how variance in the family CEOs' non-financial goals causes substantial heterogeneity in the family firms' adaptation behavior regarding the type, speed, intensity, flexibility, and persistence of their adaptation. Those behavioral differences can be explained by applying an attention-based view: Variance in non-financial goals of family business owner-managers entails heterogeneity in key decision makers' sensemaking and subsequently affects organizational adaptation. Our findings contribute to literature by providing a more nuanced understanding of (family) firms' adaptation heterogeneity and also bring about important implications for practitionersType: conference paper