Abstract
This study examines whether founding generation managed family firms are capable of responding proactively to the COVID-19 disruption via firm renewal. We used a unique global COVID-19 crisis specific survey dataset comprising of 2,130 family firm observations. Our findings indicate that in comparison to the later generations, founding generation-managed family firms only do better at strategic renewal as a response to the crisis when they have sufficient managerial capabilities. Our study recommends that family businesses, especially those managed by the founding generations should emphasize managerial capabilities rather than merely focusing on socioemotional wealth (SEW) when deciding on crisis coping strategies.