#5165. Born to rebel? The owner birth order and R&D investments in Chinese family firms

July 2026publication date
Proposal available till 23-05-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript0 $

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Journal’s subject area:
Strategy and Management;
Management of Technology and Innovation;
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Abstract:
Family background has a significant impact on family firms’ strategies such as innovation investments. This study investigates a family science factor: family firm owners birth order, defined as the relative rank of the owner in terms of the age hierarchy among siblings in the family. Joining the family niche model of birth order and socioemotional wealth perspective, we propose that later-born family firm owners tend to be risk-takers and invest more in R&D projects compared with their earlier-born counterparts. We further examine how the two other powerful decision-makers within family firms enable or constrain the owners birth order–R&D investment relationship. We contend that the positive birth order impact on R&D investment is weaker when a family member is the chairperson of the board, while such a relationship is stronger in the presence of owner–CEO duality. We confirm our hypotheses using a sample of 605 firm-year observations from family firms between 20XX and 20XX. This study demonstrates the important impact of family science factors on innovation heterogeneities.
Keywords:
Birth order; corporate governance; family firms; innovation; R&D investment

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