Does the founders’ involvement in R&D influence SMEs’ performance?

The paper investigates the pivotal role of founders’ initial and enduring involvement in R&D in SMEs’ performance. A conceptual moderated-mediated model is outlined based on the intersection between resource orchestration and competence-based perspectives. Propositions are derived and tested on a random sample of 350 low research-intensive SMEs, observing that founders’ involvement in R&D matters for SMEs’ performance. Empirical findings also how founders as critical actors for inventive resource orchestration and how and under what conditions their involvement is likely to nurture the performance of low research-intensive SMEs. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.