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The Impact of Storytelling on Innovation: a Multi Case Study
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2015-08-11
Author(s)
Abstract
The founder’s values and beliefs are often determinant for family business’ later organizational path and as such affect the organization’s level of innovation. Building on recent research that has identified storytelling as an important means to imprint the founder’s values and beliefs, we apply a multi-case research design to investigate how different foci of those stories affect a family firm’s level of innovation. We suggest that founder-centered stories entail a focus on decisions that match with the founder’s values, hierarchical decision-making, and destructive conflicts, which ultimately lead to low levels of innovation. To the contrary, family-centered stories free family members in their decision-making and entail a collaborative decision-making characterized by low levels of conflicts. As a result, those firms have higher levels of innovation as compared to firms with founder-centered stories. We summarize our findings in a model of path creation in family firms.
Project(s)
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Book title
ACAD MANAGE PROC January 2015 2015 (Meeting Abstract Supplement) 16902
Publisher
Academy of Management
Start page
1
End page
40
Pages
40
Event Title
75th Academy of Management Annual Meeting (AOM) 2015 "Opening Governance"
Event Location
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Event Date
07.-11.08.2015
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
240042