Juggling attention spaces: impact of regulatory focus dispersion on firm performance in family and non-family businesses

Abstract This study employs the attention-based view (ABV) to examine the impact of regulatory focus dispersion on family and non-family firms. Guided by the socioemotional wealth framework, family firms face challenges as diverse regulations threaten family firm performance. Family firms (non-family firms) realize negative (positive) performance with increasing regulatory focus dispersion. This research contributes by integrating ABV with family firm characteristics and regulatory focus dispersion, offering implications for increasingly regulatory environments.