Family involvement in management, social trust and the environmental responsibility performance of family firms

Abstract

Based on the perspective of socioemotional wealth, this paper explores the effect of family involvement in management on environmental responsibility performance and the moderating role of social trust by using the data of Chinese A-share listed family firms from 2010 to 2019. The results show that an increase of family involvement in management significantly improves the environmental responsibility performance of family firms, and a decrease in social trust strengthens the positive effect of family involvement in management on environmental responsibility performance. We further investigate the impact of life cycle stages on the above relationship and find that family involvement in management has the most significant positive effect on environmental responsibility performance and that social trust has the most significant moderating role in mature family firms. Our results demonstrate the importance of socioemotional wealth, external environmental factors and life cycle stages for the environmental responsibility strategies of family managers.