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For this paper, the authors focus on Porter’s competitive advantage. Hybrid strategy refers to how a firm creates value vis-à-vis competitors by simultaneously relying on lower costs and greater differentiation to achieve a competitive advantage. This strategy emphasises both and aims to provide much more monetary value to customers through the combination of reduced cost and a higher rate of differentiation. In addition, this research focuses on family small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), because they have particularities arising from the incorporation of family members both as owners of the SME and in managerial positions. The porpose of this study is to analyse whether the existing differences produced by the role of the family in strategic decision-making and the concentration of family power have a higher impact on performance and innovation than non-family SMEs.

Structural equation modelling was used to analyse Spanish firms with fewer than 250 employees. This study randomly selected SMEs operating in Spain from the Spanish Central Business Directory (2021) database. The overall sample design was based on stratified sampling.

SMEs are facing new challenges, and this has led to the emergence of new competitive strategies. Companies have started to combine differentiation strategies with cost strategies to achieve superior performance and better adapt to these changes. This study confirms a positive relationship between the adoption of hybrid strategies and market performance in SMEs. In addition, hybrid strategy reinforces innovation, which has a mediating role between hybrid strategy and market performance. Finally, the findings indicate that family SMEs achieve a greater impact of hybrid strategy on innovation than non-family SMEs. Moreover, innovation plays a mediating role only in the case of family firms, which enhances the relationship between hybrid strategy and market performance.

For SMEs to survive in turbulent environments, this study proposes the adoption of hybrid strategies instead of pure strategies. The novel model links hybrid strategy (as opposed to “stuck in the middle”), innovation and market performance. The research is valuable for owners and managers of family SMEs because this study finds differences in the relationships studied compared to non-family SMEs.

Drawing on the theories of servant leadership and upper echelons, this paper aims to highlight the mechanisms through which CEO servant leadership enhances firm innovativeness in hotels. This study aims to test a multiple mediation model by considering the mediating role of encouragement of participation (EoPART) – a high-performance human resources (HR) practice – and employees’ voice (EVOICE) in sequence.

Data were collected from HR managers of 34 hotels in the hospitality industry in Spain, which represents an important international tourist destination. Two methods of rigorous data analysis were used (partial least squares [PLS], structural equation modeling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis [fs/QCA]), which enabled robust findings to be produced with minimal sample size requirements.

CEO servant leadership had a positive indirect effect on firm innovativeness in hotels, via the sequential application of EoPART and EVOICE.

The findings provide new HR-related insights regarding the encouragement of firm innovativeness in hotels: CEOs can boost innovativeness in their hotels through the development of EoPART systems, which in turn favor EVOICE.

This is one of the first studies to analyze whether CEO servant leadership has an impact on innovativeness in hotels. Moreover, this study is the first to show the internal mechanisms (EoPART, EVOICE) through which CEO servant leadership encourages hotel innovativeness.

This article focusses on the hybrid strategy, a simultaneous combination of cost leadership and differentiation strategy. The study aims to examine the impact of hybrid strategy on firm performance through its anticipated positive effects on process and product innovation. In addition, we study the moderating role of adaptive capacity in the direct relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation.

Structural equation modelling was used to analyse 1,842 Spanish firms with fewer than 250 employees. We randomly selected small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Spain from the Spanish Central Business Directory (2021) database. The overall sample design was based on stratified sampling.

We found that hybrid strategy is positively related to firm performance and to process and product innovation. Additionally, in firms implementing hybrid strategies, process innovation fostered firm performance. Finally, adaptive capacity strengthened the relationships of hybrid strategy with process and product innovation. This sheds light on how and when hybrid strategy is most effective in fostering SME performance.

We highlight that SMEs need to establish strategies that use diverse resources and capabilities and not just generate competitive advantage using one strategy (cost leadership or differentiation strategy). This requires an agile and flexible systems and structures.

Our research provides novel results by proposing the adoption of hybrid strategies instead of pure strategies (cost leadership and differentiation strategy) as a way for SMEs to survive during crises. Unlike “stuck in the middle” strategies, our study demonstrates the importance of hybrid strategies in a comprehensive model that links them to innovation and firm performance, with adaptive capacity being a determining factor.

Over the past few years, several scholars have focused on green innovation in the agri-food industry. In line with this research stream, the purpose of this paper is to cover some unexplored areas regarding if stakeholder pressures have a positive influence on family engagement to implement green innovation practices and socially responsible practices.

By adopting a qualitative research methodology, mainly based on a multiple case study, this paper seeks to cover some unexplored areas regarding the understanding the relationship between stakeholders, family involvement and business practices in green innovation. The authors analyze eight cases from five Latin American countries selected, all are family firms focused on agricultural production.

Latin American family firms from agri-food industry, have a positive influence from internal/external stakeholder to implement green innovation initiatives and socially responsible practices, that result in short/long term business practices.

The originality of the proposed conceptual model stems from the need to overcome the previous theoretical models based on the stakeholder theory, which deals separately with internal/external influence over the firm.