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Innovation is essential for family firms to remain competitive. One means to enhance the success of innovation within family firms is to assess readiness prior to beginning the innovation process. This article introduces the Readiness for Innovation in Family Firms (RIFF) framework, which provides a diagnostic assessment and identifies multiple factors associated with innovation readiness. By applying the RIFF framework, managers of family firms can focus on specific factors that prepare the firm to engage in the innovation adoption process, increasing success.

One of the most complex challenges for a family business is when an in-law joins the firm. In-laws are part of the family through marriage; but they form a group of unique stakeholders in the family firm as marriage can be severed but blood cannot be changed. Consequently, in-laws are not always viewed as full-fledged family members. While the firm's founder and family members face challenges as they consider integrating in-laws into the family firm, the in-laws face many challenges in joining a family firm as well. This case illustrates these tensions by tracing John Malone's involvement working as an in-law for Aurum Furniture, a small family business located in a large Midwestern city in the U.S. Issues that would have been straightforward in a non-family firm were anything but that in the non-professionalized family firm. The case provides considerable flexibility with instructors having opportunity to discuss the dynamics among members of a small family business. While we emphasize the challenges faced by in-laws, the case is particularly well-suited to facilitate a more general discussion on the challenges that an individual encounters as he or she joins a non-professionalized family firm. As such, it can be used with family business owners as they reflect on their concept of family and the roles of individual members-especially, in-laws-and the firm's decisions to professionalize. The case can be used with graduate and undergraduate students and workshops in family business or small business management.