ABSTRACT
This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on corporate financial performance using a unique, cross-country, and longitudinal sample of 3350 listed firms worldwide. We find that the financial performance of family firms has been significantly higher than that of nonfamily firms during the COVID-19 pandemic, accounting for pre-pandemic business conditions. This effect is pertinent to firms with strong family involvement in management or in both management and ownership. We also identify the role of firm-, industry-, and country-level contingencies for family business financial performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study offers a novel understanding of the financial resilience across different types of family business and sets an agenda for future research on the drivers of resilience of family firms to adverse events. It also provides important and novel evidence for policymakers, particularly for firms with different ownership and management structures. © 2023, The Author(s).
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill, with severe consequences on economic and health systems, requiring the identification and implementation of innovative solutions. This study's aims are threefold: first, to examine the impact of balanced and combined dimensions of ambidexterity on for-profit organizations' innovation performance related to pandemics;second, to uncover whether and to what extent such innovation performance contributes to tackling global health grand challenges (i.e., mortality rate, risk of infection, and life expectancy) associated with pandemics;and, third, to investigate the moderating role of social equalities in health in the relationships between innovation performance and health-related outcomes associated with pandemics. To uncover how for-profit firms tackle the health-related consequences of pandemics, we examine whether they have introduced product innovations to the health sector, defined as the market introduction of a new or significantly improved good, that have helped address the health challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a panel dataset (1974–2020) with 15,062 firm-year observations from the United States, we show that both the separate and the synchronous implementation of the balanced and combined dimensions of ambidexterity have a strong positive effect on firms' innovation performance and, particularly, innovation initiatives related to the pandemic. The results also reveal that innovation activities (i.e., granted patents and citations focused on COVID-19) negatively affect mortality rate and risk of infection, as well as the positive impact of innovation on increasing life expectancy, with social equalities in health moderating this relationship. Taken together, we make novel contributions to the literature on how to tackle the health-related consequences of pandemics through innovation and provide actionable managerial guidance on how firms can enhance innovation performance. © 2023 The Authors. Journal of Product Innovation Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Product Development & Management Association.
ABSTRACT
This study explores how entrepreneurial firms responded to - and displayed resilience in - coping with the uncertainty generated by an unexpected crisis. We examine how entrepreneurs leveraged slack resources to build organizational resilience and, thanks to their entrepreneurial attitude, could eventually turn adversities into opportunities. Through a multiple case study, four key entrepreneurial responses emerge about the type of slack resources (business or family) and extent of entrepreneurial attitude (favourable or unfavourable) leveraged: "waiting while seeding”, "keeping business as usual”, "striving to resist” and "surfing the pandemic”. Slack resources, both business and family, can enable the absorption of a shock, contributing to building absorptive resilience, or the adaptation to the shock, contributing to building adaptive resilience. Yet, they are not sufficient to turn adversities into opportunities because firms also require a favourable entrepreneurial attitude to activate slack. Plain English Summary How entrepreneurial firms respond to - and display resilience in - coping with a crisis's uncertainty varies according to the entrepreneurial attitude of the entrepreneur and the typology of slack resource leveraged. We find that these firms responded to the Covid 19 crisis either through: "waiting while seeding”, "keeping business as usual”, "striving to resist” or "surfing the pandemic”. The four responses differ in the type of slack resources — business or family — and extent of entrepreneurial attitude — favourable or unfavourable — leveraged. Slack resources, both business and family, are not sufficient to turn adversities into opportunities because firms require a favourable entrepreneurial attitude to activate slack. The study contributes to business practice by showing that both family and non-family businesses to thrive in the "new normal” era will have to develop the entrepreneurial resources of the team. Policymakers must be attentive to how firms' accumulated resources are deployed during times of crisis and foster the capture of opportunities out of the storm. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.