Stemming from socioemotional wealth preservation arguments, the aim of this paper is to analyse whether high family ownership and influence moderate the relationship between innovativeness and modes of corporate venturing activities (national vs. international venturing). The main hypotheses are tested on a sample of 235 firms using structural equation modelling techniques in the form of partial least squares regression. Our main findings suggest that there is a significant positive relationship between innovativeness and corporate venturing activities, both in family and non-family firms. This relationship is much stronger for national than international corporate venturing. Moreover, high family ownership and influence negatively affect only the innovativeness-national venturing relationship, while this negative effect is less manifest for the case of international venturing.