Abstract
As an important form of management rights allocation, marital role reversal may shape innovation strategy in family firms. This paper defines marital role reversal from the perspective of management rights allocation and examines its impact on innovation investment in couple-controlled family firms. The results show that marital role reversal significantly increases innovation investment, and this relationship is supported by both the modern corporate governance mechanism and the traditional ethical norms mechanism. The effect is more pronounced in family firms with state-owned shareholders, restructured family firms, and firms located in regions with a more developed institutional environment. Further analyses show that regional divorce rates, next-generation involvement, family executives’ kinship, and spousal educational differences all affect the relationship between marital role reversal and innovation investment. Marital role reversal is more effective in promoting innovation investment when husbands retain greater control rights. Finally, marital role reversal improves innovation performance, especially exploratory innovation.