Strategic renewal through knowledge integration in family firms: an application of the 4I model

Family firms, characterized by fervent entrepreneurial activity, provide a new avenue for examining strategic renewal. Despite strategic renewal’s recognition as a response to environmental changes in all firms, few researchers have investigated this process with family firms. This paper attempts to fill that gap by using the Crossan’s 4I model to examine knowledge integration in family firms. We analyzed three case studies which demonstrated the unique characteristics of strategic renewal in family firms: first, the entrepreneur’s role in starting and feeding the process through knowledge integration; second, the specificities of the process and the junction of some of its phases. This paper extends the Crossan’s 4I model to family firms and highlights particularities of each process phase; it also identifies factors that allow entrepreneur(s), family members and staff to implement successful strategic renewal. The paper has implications for current theory as well as entrepreneurial practices.