The antecedents of entrepreneurial risk-taking in private family firms: CEO seasons and contingency factors

This article investigates how entrepreneurial risk-taking in family firms is shaped by CEO tenure, generational involvement, and CEO founder status. We used a dynamic panel data model with a large sample of Italian family firms over the period 2003–2012. Consistent with the theoretical framework of Hambrick and Fukutomi. Academy of Management Review, 16:719-742 (1991), we showed that CEO tenure has a concave relationship with entrepreneurial risk-taking. We step forward to understand whether this relationship is shaped by the number of family generations simultaneously involved in the firm and CEO founder status. We provided evidence that the impact of CEO tenure on risk-taking is strengthened if generational involvement in the business is high, and is inverted if the CEO is also the founder of the firm.