New Ph.D. GraduationCongratulations Sebastian, we are very proud of you!!!
27. August 2018
We are very excited to announce that our Ph.D. Student Sebastian Hillebrand successfully passed his Dissertation Defense.
Sebastian's Dissertation Committee was comprised of Professors Thorsten Teichert (advisor).
Sebastian's theses summary:
Research on family firm innovation has evolved into a field of high ambivalence. In spite of an increased scholarly attention in recent years, research on the interface of family firms and innovation is still in an early stage and lacks conclusive guidance for theorists or practitioners. The term family firm innovation could be regarded as oxymoron or as pleonasm. There is one line of research, which suggests that the essence of a family firm stands in contrast to the very nature of innovation, while another line of research proposes that the core of a family firm corresponds very much to the notion of innovation.
This dissertation aims to extend recent research, which generated a more differentiated perspective on family firm innovation, by acknowledging that a family’s influence on a firm can bring both benefits and harm for the family firm’s innovation. The five manuscripts aim to contribute to disentangling the ambivalence in the research field and to reconciling the “family firm innovation paradox”, by providing a more integrative understanding of the interface between family firms and innovation.
The findings stress that one family firm can be fundamentally different from another. The results reveal that family firms’ defining characteristics, including the generation, management, and succession, emerge as key contingencies in family firm innovation. This should encourage future scholars to place specific attention on the respective family firm definition applied. The findings also suggest that the current technological change and vast opportunities for innovation have a unique impact on successions in family firms. Also, the studies offer insights into theory application and conceptualization of innovation in family firm innovation research.
Congratulations Sebastian, we are very proud of you!!!