External Corporate Venturing in Family Firms: a Behavioral Perspective

This study investigates the propensity of family firms for external corporate venturing. We rely on behavioral and regret theories to build hypotheses on the effect of family control on the likelihood to engage in such risky and unconventional initiatives. We also consider how some organizational and investment-specific contingencies modify the importance of socioemotional wealth as the primary reference point. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 12,320 firm-year observations gathered from 2,548 European listed firms in the period 2011-2018. Combining the cognitive and emotional components of decision-making, we contribute to family business and corporate entrepreneurship literatures.