Directly funded (DF) home care provides funding to home care recipients to coordinate their own care and supports, and is available across all Canadian provinces. Current research on DF home care focuses on the experiences of adults with disabilities self-directing their own care, but less is known about the experiences of family members managing services for adults 55 years of age and older. This article presents findings from a qualitative analysis of 24 semi-structured interviews with older adults and caregivers using the DF program in Manitoba, Canada, focusing on family manager experiences. We identify three themes in the interview data: (1) DF home care enhances choice and flexibility for older people and their caregivers, (2) choice and flexibility reduce caregiver strain, and (3) agency services reduce administrative burden. We discuss the importance of care relationships and the role of family managers. We recommend that traditional home care systems learn from DF, and that increased administrative support would reduce caregiver strain.

Research on innovation in family firms has been increasing recently; however, the results are mixed, especially for non-listed firms. Based on internal social capital, we explore whether the relational antecedents of innovation are contingent on family involvement in management. Using a sample of 172 Spanish family small and medium-sized enterprises – an organisational form with prominent social and emotional factors – we test a structural model that examines the influence exerted by family involvement in the top management team on the relationships between innovation and internal social capital – in the form of family social capital and non-family social capital (family group and non-family group, respectively). The empirical findings obtained using the partial least squares technique show the importance of family involvement in management in such relationships in family firms. Family involvement in management was found to have negative effects in the relationship between internal social capital and innovation.