The impact of a service-dominant focus strategy and stewardship culture on organizational innovativeness in family-owned businesses

Drawing from service-dominant logic and stewardship theory, we examine the extent to which both family- and non-family businesses integrate their customers into their strategic orientation and attempt to satisfy them through increasing innovativeness, while integrating stewardship cultural behaviors in their customer service processes. Through use of primary data, we analyze 206 family- and 101 non-family-owned businesses. Our results indicate that family-owned businesses have a strong service-dominant focus and are more capable of incorporating stewardship cultural behaviors in their customer service processes resulting in increased organizational innovativeness compared to their non-family competitors.

Research highlights▶ Service-dominant (S-D) strategy influences innovativeness in family businesses. ▶ Stewardship culture moderates S-D strategy to innovativeness in family businesses. ▶ Introduction of the S-D Logic strategy literature to family business research.