Abstract
While family small and medium enterprises (SMEs) increasingly involve women in their boards, the role of female directors as catalysts of innovation is yet to be fully understood. Drawing on upper echelons theory, we examine directors' gender in conjunction with family affiliation to investigate the influence of family female directors on family SMEs' innovation. Moreover, by analyzing the contingent role of socioemotional wealth preferences, we open the black box of noneconomic aspectsshaping the cognition and behavior of boards. Our analysisof a unique survey-based sample of 287 Belgian family SMEs reveals that family female directors do exert a positive influence on R&D intensity. However, according to themixed gamble logic, this influence is filtered by the positiveand negative moderation of their socioemotional wealth preferences.
