This study examines the impact of family management on digital transformation with specific regard to the firm’s development of Internet of Things (IoT) innovations. Drawing on the distinctive characteristics of firms with family managers, such as the focus on family‐centered noneconomic goals, long tenure, emotional ties to existing assets, and rigid mental models, it hypothesizes that increasing family involvement in the top management team is negatively related to the development of IoT innovations that are distant from a firm’s existing technology base (i.e., exploratory IoT innovations) compared to exploitative IoT innovations. Further, the study proposes that the firm’s degree of technological diversification, especially in unrelated forms, reinforces this relationship. The longitudinal analysis between 2002 and 2013 on a sample of publicly traded German firms allows us to test our hypotheses from the beginning of the emergence of the IoT concept. Our findings show that due to the particular characteristics of their managers, family‐managed firms do not welcome the risks related to exploratory IoT innovations, and the benefit of risk diversification from technological diversification is lower than the cost of abandoning family‐centered goals. As our results imply that the involvement of family managers constrains the development of exploratory IoT innovation, the top management team composition in firms that intend to be at the forefront of the digital transformation should be accurately designed by avoiding a high proportion of family members.

中文翻译：

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探索性和探索性物联网创新的数字化转型：家庭管理和技术多元化的影响*

本研究考察了家族管理对数字化转型的影响，特别是关于公司发展物联网（IoT）创新的方面。利用具有家族管理者的公司的鲜明特征，例如注重以家族为中心的非经济目标，长期任职，对现有资产的情感联系以及僵化的心理模型，它假设家族在高层管理团队中的参与度增加是负相关的与开发性物联网创新相比，与公司现有技术基础（即探索性物联网创新）相距甚远的物联网创新的发展。此外，该研究还提出，企业的技术多元化程度，尤其是无关形式的技术多元化，会加强这种关系。在2002年至2013年之间对德国一家上市公司的样本进行的纵向分析使我们能够从IoT概念出现之初就检验我们的假设。我们的发现表明，由于管理者的特殊性，家族管理的公司不欢迎与探索性物联网创新相关的风险，技术多样化带来的风险分散带来的好处低于放弃以家庭为中心的目标的成本。由于我们的结果表明，家族管理者的参与限制了物联网探索性创新的发展，因此应避免使用大量的家族成员，以准确设计打算站在数字化转型前沿的公司的高层管理团队组成。