Entrepreneurship and perfomance in Italian family SMES: from theoretical models to a competency approach

Much work has been done in trying to understand whether a competent leader can also do a great job. This research aims to assess whether this relationship between compe-tencies and task performance can be extended also to firm performance, when analyzing entrepreneurs. In particular, in the first two chapters we investigate the ways in which entrepreneurial competencies become firm performance. The focus will be on family business, a very peculiar social context where relationships are major determinants of decisions and re-sults. The first chapter presents a quantitative approach, while the second one introduces a qu-alitative one. The last chapter is a peculiar literature review which presents an original analysis of the full body of work done in the field of family business study. I felt that such a work was needed, on one side to justify the approach used in the first two chap-ters which emphasizes not only the theoretical implications but also practical implica-tions of this work, on the other side to lay the foundation for my future research. Chapter 1 In this chapter, we analyze the role of emotional intelligence competencies and their impact on business outcomes in a sample of entrepreneurs of small and medium sized Italian firms. We focus on the measurement of competencies by using a variety of tools and identify those ones that distinguish superior performers (i.e. distinctive competen-cies). Using factor and regression analysis we identify three factors of distinctive com-petencies and show that the relational dimension primarily affects organizational results. In particular, we have some initial evidence that competencies such as Efficiency orien-tation, Organizational awareness and Teamwork could be related to a higher firm fi-nancial performance. Chapter 2 This second chapter aims to answer the question: why and how do entrepreneurial com-petencies influence performance in family business? By means of a qualitative multiple case study analysis (2 cases among the 96 analyzed in the first chapter) we aim to find which individual, familiar or organizational variables influence this process. Evidence shows that entrepreneurs need to find their decisional autonomy and legitimacy to be able to enact their competencies in favor of the whole organization. Chapter 3 The last chapter study analyzes all published articles of the last 13 volumes (from 1998 to 2010) of Family Business Review by classifying them along two dimensions: relev-ance for practice (i.e. practical implications) and contribution to theory (i.e. theory building and theory testing). We also try to understand whether the levels of theoretical contributions and practical implications within articles are significant predictors of cita-tion rates. Both scales used and results can give useful contributions to future research.

Capitolo 1 In questo capitolo, viene analizzato il ruolo delle emotional intelligence competencies e il loro impatto sui risultati aziendali in un campione di piccolo e medie imprese italiane. Viene presentata un’analisi sulla misurazione delle competenze attraverso diverse me-todologie e vengono individuate alcune competenze distinctive, ossia quelle che caratte-rizzano le aziende con le performance migliori. Utilizzando l’analisi fattoriale e la re-gressione si sono definiti tre fattori di competenze distintive e si è mostrato che la di-mensione relazionale è quella che maggiormente impatta sui risultati delle imprese. In particolare, si è ottenuta un’evidenza iniziale che alcune competenze come l’Orientamento all’efficienza, la Consapevolezza organizzativa e il Lavoro di gruppo potrebbero essere legate a una performance d’impresa superiore. Capitolo 2 Questo secondo capitolo mira a rispondere alla domanda: perché e come le competenze imprenditoriali influenzano la performance nelle aziende famigliari? Utilizzando un’analisi di casi multipli (2 casi tra i 96 analizzati nel primo capitolo) si ha l’obbiettivo di individuare quali variabili individuali, familiari e organizzative influenzano questo processo. L’analisi evidenzia che gli imprenditori hanno la necessità di avere autonomia decisionale e legittimazione per essere in grado di attivare le loro competenze a favore dell’organizzazione. Capitolo 3 L’ultimo capitolo analizza tutti gli articoli pubblicati negli ultimi 13 volumi (dal 1998 al 2010) su Family Business Review classificandoli secondo due dimensioni: rilevanza pratica, ossia implicazioni pratiche, e contributi alla teoria, cioè theory building e theory testing. Si cerca inoltre di capire se il livello di contributi teorici e implicazioni pratiche contenute negli articoli possano predire il numero di citazioni. Sia le scale di classifica-zione utilizzate che i risultati forniscono degli importanti contributi alla letteratura.