Strategic Persistence in Family Business

Using a behavioral theory framework, we argue that family firms are more persistent (less likely to engage in the strategic renewal form of corporate entrepreneurship) in their strategic behaviors over time than nonfamily firms owing to their goals of maintaining family tradition and parsimony. We also argue that family firms controlled by founders or having a family member as Chairman or CEO are more likely to be persistent in their strategies than family firms with different governance structures. Panel regression based on a sample of 8,748 firm-year observations of S&P 1500 manufacturing firms from 1996 to 2013 support our hypotheses.