Collaborative Innovations of Family Firms with Startups — How Family Firms Play the Startup Game

Abstract

Collaboration with startups can boost family firms’ innovation performance by utilizing knowledge about emerging technology and different ways of working. This is intriguing, since family businesses are driven by tradition, operate on a long-term basis due to generational think- ing and are ultimately an important economic driver. The alliance with startups and founders offers benefits for all involved parties and family firms utilize them to insource external inno-vation or achieve innovation outside the established business. As the existing research on cor-porate engagement programs of family businesses with startups is still in its early stages, this article adds supplementary findings about current activities, variety of design configurations and motivations from a family perspective. Empirical findings towards family firms' values, procedure, decision making, and framework conditions contribute to a better understanding on how and with whom they play the “startup game”.