Abstract
We integrate entrepreneurial orientation and socioemotional wealth perspectives in order to investigate investment decisions of family-owned firms in relation to environmental munificence and past performances. Using a panel of Italian firms (2006-2010) we show that family firms, unlike their nonfamily counterparts, are risk-seeking when environmental munificence is low and risk-averse when it is high. However, this result is conditioned on family businesses' past performance; family firms making investments when environmental munificence is high and past performance is low, as well as those with a strong performance record but a poor resource environment, outperform their non-family counterparts. The implication for theory and practices are also discussed.