Abstract: Based on the sample of Chinese family firms listed from 2011 to 2016, this paper studies the relationship between family decision rights allocation and corporate innovation. Meanwhile, the moderating effects of slack resources and social-emotional wealth are discussed. The results show that:(1) there is a significant negative correlation between family-family decision rights allocation and corporate innovation, a significant positive correlation between family-occupation decision rights allocation and corporate innovation, no significant relationship between occupation-family decision rights allocation and corporate innovation, and a significant positive correlation between occupation-occupation decision rights allocation and corporate innovation, with the positive impact of family-occupation decision rights allocation being the most significant; (2) for family-family and family-occupation, slack resources weaken the relationship between decision rights allocation and corporate innovation; (3) for family-family and family-occupation, restricted social-emotional wealth strengthens decision rights allocation and corporate innovation; (4) extended social-emotional wealth weakens the relationship between family-occupation decision rights allocation and corporate innovation, and extended social-emotional wealth strengthens the positive correlation between occupation-occupation decision rights allocation and corporate innovation. From the perspective of decision rights allocation, this paper explains the innovation strategy in family firms, and focuses on the influence of slack resources and social-emotional wealth, which has certain enlightenment on how to design the decision rights allocation in family firms.

Key words: family firms, decision rights allocation, corporate innovation, slack resources, socio-emotional wealth