How Public Support for Innovation Affect Entrepreneurial Orientation of Mexican Companies: The Moderating Effect of Being a Family Business

Abstract

We study the relationships between the input and network additionalities prompted by public support for innovation and entrepreneurial orientation and whether being a family business moderates these relationships. The results, based on a dataset of 115 Mexican firms, show that the changes generated by public support for innovation programmes encourage entrepreneurial orientation. Additionally, family firms have a differential ability to transform input and network additionalities into entrepreneurial orientation. This study contributes theoretically and practically by highlighting the positive effects of research and development support programmes on a firm’s entrepreneurial orientation. It also points out the need to consider family status when designing public policies, since our results reveal that family and non-family firms are not equally efficient in transforming resources into entrepreneurial orientation and that family firms that drive networking through the rules of the subsidy do not trigger the expected potential benefits.