This study builds on the idea that family businesses perform particularly well in the domain of exploitative innovations and explores a possible source of this strength, namely their employees’ spontaneous involvement in informal innovation activity. Specifically, we develop a mediation model on the interrelationship between family business employment and employees’ innovative work involvement. Analyses are based on a sample of 893 Belgian employees using structural equation modeling. Results suggest that family business employment is positively associated with employees’ innovative work involvement, and that part of this relationship can be attributed to their heightened perceptions of organizational support and work motivation.
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