Entrepreneurial orientation in long-lived family firmsThomas ZellwegerPhilipp SiegerAccepted: 25 January 2010 ? Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2010AbstractWe apply a key construct from the entre-preneurship field, entrepreneurial orientation (EO), inthe context of long-lived family firms. Our qualitative in-depth case studies show that a permanently highlevel of the five EO dimensions is not a necessary condition for long-term success, as traditional entre- preneurship and EO literature implicitly suggest. Rather, we claim that the level of EO is dynamically adapted over time and that the original EO scales (autonomy, innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness,and competitive aggressiveness) do not sufficiently capture the full extent of entrepreneurial behaviors inlong-lived family firms. Based on these considerations wesuggestextendingtheexistingEOscalestoprovidea more fine-grained depiction of firm-level corporateentrepreneurship in long-lived family firms.KeywordsEntrepreneurship ? Entrepreneurialorientation ? Family firm ? Firm survivalJEL ClassificationsL21 ? L25 ? L261 IntroductionA wide stream of corporate entrepreneurship literature proposes that entrepreneurial attitudes and behav- ior are crucial antecedents for a companys short- and long-term success (e.g., Dess et al. 2003; Zahra and Covin 1995; Zahra et al. 2000). Effective corporateentrepreneurship allows a firm to exploit its current competitive advantage while also exploring future opportunities and required competencies (Covin and Miles 1999; Kuratko et al. 2005; Schendel and Hitt 2007). In an environment of rapid change and short- ened product and business model life cycles, futureprofit streams from existing operations are uncertain, requiring businesses to constantly seek new opportu-nities. Therefore, firms may benefit from adopting corporate entrepreneurship (Rauch et al. 2009). Partly in contrast to these claims of the pivotal role of corporate entrepreneurship for organizational suc-cess, research on entrepreneurship in family firms that have survived and prospered for long periods of time is divided as to whether these organizationsrepresent a context where entrepreneurship flourishes or is hampered (e.g., Naldi et al. 2007). Scholars argue that the particular culture and power structurefound in many family firms may considerably influ- ence the extent to which entrepreneurial activities are encouraged or hindered (Hall et al. 2001; Salvato 2004; Schein 1983; Zahra et al. 2004). Some proposethat family firms present unique settings for entre-preneurship to flourish, for example, stewardshipT. Zellweger ( Covin and Slevin 1991). Studies suggest thatfamily firms are endangered by, for example, strate- gic simplicity and inertia (Cabrera-Suarez et al. 2001; Miller 1983; Morris 1998). Moreover, Schulze et al. (2003) acknowledge the serious tensions that developwithin the family firm between the need for change and stability, with entrepreneurship seen as an antidote to stability and strategic simplicity.The finding that many family firms have managedto survive and flourish over long periods of time despite low levels of corporate entrepreneurship challenges traditional entrepreneurship wisdom. Inlight of these considerations and different findings inthe literature, we see a need for further reflection on corporate entrepreneurship in the context of long-lived family firms. We specifically examine entre- preneurial orientation (EO) and treat EO as a keyconstruct of firm-level corporate entrepreneurship (Lumpkin and Dess 1996; Miller 1983). We analyze corporate entrepreneurship in long-lived family firms through three in-depth case studiesof Swiss firms, between 80 and 175 years old. To touch upon the uniqueness of entrepreneurship infamily firms originating from the systemic interac-tions between the individual, the family, and the firm (Habbershon et al. 2003), we interviewed 13 top-echelon firm managers. Following precedent, we chose a qualitative methodology to encompass thedifferent findings on corporate entrepreneurship inthe family firm realm (Eisenhardt 1989). Using this methodology, we strive to overcome problems asso- ciated with the use of single-respondent survey data in entrepreneurship research (Zahra et al. 1999) and to address the general lack of attention to the lagged effect among the antecedents, performance outcomes, and different forms of corporate entrepreneurship (Dess et al. 2003). By investigating EO in the context of long-livedfamily firms, we make several important contribu- tions to the entrepreneurship and family business literatures. We not only shed additional light on thequestion of whether corporate entrepreneurship is a necessary condition for long-term success, but also add to the entrepreneurship literature by investigating the relationship between EO and performance (e.g., Rauch et al. 2009). Therefore, we build on and add toZahra et al.s (1999) reflection on equifinality, which suggests tha