Founder-Involvement in R&D and SMEs Performance

The aim of the paper is to shed light on the pivotal role of founders initial and enduring involvement in R&D and its reflexes on SMEs performance. Starting from theoretical propositions, a conceptual framework was outlined and operationalized in terms of a mediation/moderation model. We further tested it on a random sample of 350 low research-intensive SMEs located in Southern Italy. An augmented cross-sectional design, which measures key variables using different sources at different time points, was employed. We adopted a seemingly unrelated regression to jointly analyze variables and their interactions. We observe that founders involvement in R&D matters for SMEs performance. We also found evidence that founders involvement in R&D-SMEs performance association is mediated by R&D resources and innovation outputs. At the same time the founders involvement in R&D-R&D resources association is negatively moderated by founders multiple involvements in the firm activities.