TY - JOUR
T1 - Born innovator? How founder birth order influences product innovation generation and adoption in entrepreneurial firms
AU - Zheng, Leven J.
AU - Fan, Youqing
AU - Wang, Huan
AU - Liu, Wei
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors wish it to be known that, in their opinion, the first two authors should be regarded as equal contributors.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2021/11
Y1 - 2021/11
N2 - Individuals’ birth order may be a fundamental, engrained human early-life and family-domain experience that shapes their behaviors in adulthood. However, limited knowledge is available about the influence of birth order on individual innovation preferences. By integrating sibling rivalry theory and social identity theory and analyzing 186 high-technology entrepreneurial firms, we find that founder birth order is positively associated with product innovation generation (later-born founders pursue more innovation generation than do earlier-born founders) but is negatively associated with product innovation adoption (earlier-born founders generate more innovation adoption than do later-born founders). Further, both the age spacing between a founder and closest-born sibling and founder social identity moderate the relationships. Thus, our findings advance understanding in the literature on birth order and on entrepreneurial innovation.
AB - Individuals’ birth order may be a fundamental, engrained human early-life and family-domain experience that shapes their behaviors in adulthood. However, limited knowledge is available about the influence of birth order on individual innovation preferences. By integrating sibling rivalry theory and social identity theory and analyzing 186 high-technology entrepreneurial firms, we find that founder birth order is positively associated with product innovation generation (later-born founders pursue more innovation generation than do earlier-born founders) but is negatively associated with product innovation adoption (earlier-born founders generate more innovation adoption than do later-born founders). Further, both the age spacing between a founder and closest-born sibling and founder social identity moderate the relationships. Thus, our findings advance understanding in the literature on birth order and on entrepreneurial innovation.
KW - Entrepreneurial firm
KW - Founder birth order
KW - Product innovation generation and adoption
KW - Sibling rivalry
KW - Social identity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85112018146&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.07.047
DO - 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.07.047
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85112018146
SN - 0148-2963
VL - 136
SP - 414
EP - 430
JO - Journal of Business Research
JF - Journal of Business Research
ER -
