The answer to the question, “Which factors determine the sustainable growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)?” is still fragmented. While previous studies have paid attention to a firm’s entrepreneurial orientation (EO) as a key driver of SME growth, it is often overlooked that contextual factors can be crucial in order for EO to be effective in yielding sustainable growth in SMEs. This paper focuses on the role of relative performance as a boundary condition in the relationship between EO and sustainable growth of SMEs. We predict that the effect of EO on SMEs’ sustainable growth would differ depending on performance feedback based on their past performance. Our empirical analysis based on panel analysis shows that SMEs strongly pursue sales growth immediately after they achieve lower levels of performance than historical aspiration. However, when their performance goes beyond the historical aspiration level, their growth patterns appear to show a different pattern depending on their level of EO. SMEs with greater EO are more likely to pursue firm growth when performance is above historical aspirations while those with lesser EO are not. Our findings suggest that relative performance is an important boundary condition in the relationship between EO and SMEs’ sustainable growth.

Family business governance is an important issue for the sustainable development of economies worldwide due to its economic contribution. This review aims to offer a systematic overview of how prior studies explore the issue of family involvement within the broader corporate governance literature. By adopting a network-based perspective to visualize the research stream, this study provides meaningful insight into the key topics investigated, the patterns in the connections between critical papers, and the key players building the literature. Specifically, this paper makes three major contributions. First, our systematic review based on network analysis of keywords, citations, and authors enhances the understanding of how research on family involvement in the corporate governance literature is interconnected. Second, a large and extensive pool of corporate governance research on family involvement (947 papers) is employed to encompass research on family involvement from various academic disciplines under the umbrella of corporate governance. Third, by providing answers to questions such as “which journals should I read?”, “which keywords should I look for?”, “who are the leading scholars?”, “which journals are scholars publishing in?” and “what are emerging research trends?”, this study offers valuable implications for future research and meaningful guidelines for future studies in the field.

Although technological acquisitions have attracted much attention as a prominent means of open innovation that allows firms to complement internal innovation, their shareholder value creation effects should be influenced by whether the acquiring family businesses can successfully realize technological synergies. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether market participants perceive family businesses to create more value when undertaking technological acquisitions. Using a sample of 614 acquisitions by 71 family businesses between 2000 and 2014 in South Korea, an event study methodology is adopted. Empirical analysis yields strong support for the prediction that the stock market does not perceive family businesses to be able to create superior synergy through technological acquisitions compared to when they undertake nontechnological acquisitions. The competitive landscape also has implications for the shareholder value creation effects of technological acquisitions by family businesses. Overall, the findings of this paper provide insight into the shareholder wealth implications of technological acquisitions undertaken by family businesses.

Family-controlled diversified business groups, also known as chaebols, have played a pivotal role in the phenomenal success of the Korean economy. While prior studies on chaebols have largely focused on their institutional void-filling role, this chapter goes beyond the market failure perspective to explain the recent development and evolution of chaebols in two important ways. First, the family firm perspective is applied to explain the longevity and resilience of chaebols by focusing on their unique features as a family firm. Second, we explore the emerging form of business groups and examine their similarities and differences from traditional chaebols. <!----> <!----> <!----> <!---->