Family Firms’ Affective Endowment — Influence on Openness to Collaborative Innovations with Startups

Abstract

Family firms are a globally dominant organizational form, yet their approach to innovation— particularly through collaborations with startups—remains underexplored. As innovation in- creasingly relies on external partnerships, understanding how family-specific dynamics influ- ence openness to collaboration is crucial. Family firms face a strategic paradox—while startup partnerships offer access to novel capabilities, they may also threaten the socioemotional wealth (SEW) these firms seek to preserve. This study examines how SEW dimensions influence the willingness of family firms to collab- orate with startups and how this relationship is moderated by intergenerational authority. Draw- ing on behavioral agency theory and a quantitative research design, logistic regression with moderation analysis was applied to survey data from 82 family firms. Findings reveal that af- fective endowment alone does not significantly predict collaboration. However, when intergen- erational authority is high, affective endowment positively influences the likelihood of engag-ing in startup partnerships. These results contribute to SEW theory by demonstrating the con-tingent nature of emotional drivers in strategic decision-making and underscoring the legitimiz-ing role of senior family leadership in fostering innovation.