Internal and external resources of competitive advantage for small business success: validation across family ownership

The current study reviews both internally-driven strategic factors such as entrepreneurial orientation and firm capital and externally-driven factors such as social capital and community social responsibility and their effects on business performance across family-owned small businesses. Under a resource-based view of the firm framework, the sample was analysed using structural equation modelling. Results suggested that entrepreneurial orientation, firm capital, and corporate social responsibility reflect a significant positive relationship with business performance. Testing of relationship effects based upon ownership type (family versus non-family owned) showed no significant differences. Implications and future research directions for practitioners and academics were provided.

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