Family Firms and Coupling among CSR Disclosures and Performance

Javier Parra-Domínguez,Tania Azevedo,Fátima David

doi:10.3390/admsci11010030

Javier Parra-Domínguez, Tania Azevedo + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci11010030

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Journal: Administrative Sciences	Publication Date: Mar 16, 2021
Citations: 19	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Universidad de Salamanca

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the behaviours related to the decoupling of the disclosed information on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability, deepening these practices’ knowledge within family businesses. For this purpose, we defined decoupling as a gap between social responsibility performance (internal actions) and disclosures (external actions). For a sample of 33,809 observations for the period 2011–2019, corresponding to 5029 companies, 19% being family firms, our empirical evidence supports that family firms present a less wide gap between performance and disclosure, confirming the prevalence of socioemotional wealth dimensions in the decision-making of these companies. In firms without controlled shareholders, the quality of nonfinancial reporting could be understood as ambiguous, understanding that the most useful CSR information is found in the reports of family-owned companies.

Highlights

There is undoubted academic interest in knowing whether corporate decisions differ between companies depending on the presence or not of a family in the shareholding and key decision-making positions (i.e., Mariotti et al 2020), especially in the field of corporate social responsibility due to the principles of socioemotional wealth that determine the decision-making processes in these companies (García-Sánchez et al 2021b).According to this paradigm, family businesses are interested in other aspects beyond financial ones to perpetuate the dynasty and the family’s influence within their companies (Gómez-Mejía et al 2007)
There is an interest in determining whether or not family firms’ practices follow other companies’ information strategies, especially those relating to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) decoupling, understanding like the gap that exists between firms’ practices and the information disclosed in this regard
This paper aims to determine whether family firms show less decoupling in the disclosures they make concerning the CSR initiatives they develop

Summary

Introduction

There is undoubted academic interest in knowing whether corporate decisions differ between companies depending on the presence or not of a family in the shareholding and key decision-making positions (i.e., Mariotti et al 2020), especially in the field of corporate social responsibility due to the principles of socioemotional wealth that determine the decision-making processes in these companies (García-Sánchez et al 2021b) According to this paradigm, family businesses are interested in other aspects beyond financial ones to perpetuate the dynasty and the family’s influence within their companies (Gómez-Mejía et al 2007). The academic literature has evidenced that CSR reporting content is ambiguous and presents impression management strategies to manipulate the opinion of stakeholders, limiting its usefulness in the decision-making process (García-Sánchez et al 2020b) These practices are especially worrisome in less sustainable companies, as there is a decoupling between a firm’s CSR disclosures and performance (Sauerwald and Su 2019). There is an interest in determining whether or not family firms’ practices follow other companies’ information strategies, especially those relating to CSR decoupling, understanding like the gap that exists between firms’ practices and the information disclosed in this regard

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