Corporate Governance In Family Firms Research Articles

Do Political Connections Help or Harm Family Firms? An Audit Pricing Perspective

Past business ethics research highlights negative perceptions about corporate governance of family firms, and yet many auditors evaluate family businesses favorably and charge them lower audit fees; however, this inconsistency remains unexplained. Moreover, the impact of family firms’ political connections and board gender diversity on audit fees is still not clear. Based on the data from listed Chinese family firms, we address these important research gaps by using the local institutional environment in which the client operates as a moderator of the process by which auditors assess the implications of clients’ political connections. Political connections reduce audit fees when a client is located in a region with high-quality public administration. Female representation in audit committees positively moderates the relationship between political connections and audit fees, as female committee members react to their firms’ political connections by demanding higher levels of assurance from auditors. Female committee members also demand higher audit efforts for family firms managed by non–family-member CEOs.

Family control, institutional investors, and financial distress: Evidence from China

AbstractThe effect of family control on corporate governance and risk‐taking behaviours remains disputed worldwide. We examine how family control affects the financial distress of firms listed on the Chinese stock market. Our empirical findings suggest that family firms, particularly those with descendant CEOs, face significantly higher financial distress risk. Higher debt levels and more diversified acquisitions of family firms can partially explain their higher financial risk. Further analysis indicates that institutional investors help reduce the financial distress risk of Chinese family firms. We contend that institutional investors play vital roles in enhancing the corporate governance of family firms in China. Taken together, our study urges attention to the financial distress risk of family firms in a transient economy.

Unveiling the Global Corporate Governance Landscape in Family Firms: A Comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis

This research leverages Biblioshiny-R Studio to conduct a bibliometric study of 514 scholarly documents from the Scopus database (1998–2022) on corporate governance in family firms. Despite a consistent growth trajectory in research dedicated to this domain, a notable revelation surfaces: a decline in the influence of paper on this topic in last years. The collaborative nature of academic endeavors is also unveiled, with numerous international partnerships indicating a globalized approach to research. The central research themes span corporate strategy, governance, sustainability, and family structure. The findings not only contribute to existing literature but also address research gaps identified in prior research. The implications extend to both academia and practitioners, offering valuable insights for navigating the complex terrain of corporate governance in family firms.

Corporate Governance in Family Firms: A Bibliometric Analysis

Like other business forms, corporate governance is a matter of concern for family firms as well. The objective of the work is to study the corporate governance practices of family-owned firms using bibliometric analysis of existing literature. With the help of VOSviewer & Biblioshiny Software, an attempt has been made to develop the visualization patterns based on academic publications growth, most influential authors, country, keyword occurrences, thematic map and co-authorship network. Based on 435 studies conducted during the selected period, the study found the maximum work has been done in the USA followed by Italy, Spain, China and UK, and Anderson and Reeb (2003) is the most cited work in this area. The main focus of prominent studies was on assessing the impact of family ownership on a firm’s performance, and there is unanimity that family firms’ CEOs devote more time and effort to preserve socio-economic wealth, have fewer forecasting errors and perform better. Though ‘corporate strategy’ and ‘governance approach’ are key concepts in family businesses yet it is a less explored areas. Thiss article provides an overview of how the literature on corporate governance and family firms has evolved and a synopsis of the most influential authors, most productive countries, co-word analysis and themes clustering. This study provides a thorough coverage of the existing literature on family governance mechanisms and is helpful for new researchers who want to understand this concept and also for those who are looking to explore new directions in the same field.

Exploring sustainability disclosures in family firms: a bibliometric analysis

Families own two-thirds of the world’s private businesses. It is an organizational model that has succeeded in various sizes, both small and large publicly listed companies. This study aims to explore the developments in sustainability reporting for family firms. The current study employs bibliometric analysis to examine family firms’ sustainability literature’s conceptual structure and influential aspects. Our study recruited 131 research documents from 2004 to 2021 based on our inclusion criteria. The findings from the conceptual analysis, the co-occurrence network of keywords analysis yields three clusters: CSR disclosures and corporate governance in family firms of emerging economics (red cluster), while red and green clusters focus on environmental performance, earnings management, and corporate governance in family firms. Our study has also highlighted the influential aspects of sustainability in family firms’ literature. Our findings have significant implications for researchers and policymakers. Our findings could be helpful to both family businesses and sustainability researchers. The study contributes to the business literature by illuminating the new research directions in sustainability reporting by family firms using bibliometric techniques.

Confucianism and the altruistic behaviour in the succession of family firms: evidence from asset write-downs

ABSTRACT This paper explores how Confucianism influences the altruistic behaviour during family firm successions. Using a sample of Chinese listed family firms which have transferred the power to family successors during 2005-2018, we find that family firms deeply influenced by Confucianism intend to take a big bath via asset write-downs in the year before the succession. Confucianism has stronger influence on altruism when the successor have closer blood relationship with the founder, when the successor is less educated, when the family have weaker control over the firm or when the firm is in a lower market position. When the board of directors is more independent or the auditor has higher reputation, the influence of Confucianism is weaker. Family firms with more asset write-downs have better short-term performance after the succession, but lower business reform and R&D inputs. These findings enrich the research on Confucianism and corporate governance of family firms.

Mapping the corporate governance scholarship: Current state and future directions

AbstractResearch Question/IssuesWe conduct a comprehensive analysis of all scholarly publications in the field of corporate governance (CG) since the Enron scandal of 2001. Using bibliometric methods, we identify prominent themes that have served as the foundation of CG research, prominent topics in the field along with their temporal developments, and recent trends in CG research. In addition, we identify the authors and journals that have had the biggest impact in the field.Research Findings/InsightsWe document that the number of annual publications in CG has increased by a factor of eight since the early 2000s, with research articles being published in a wide variety of general interest journals, as well as in outlets specialized in the field of CG. We identify six research themes as the foundation of CG research: the theoretical foundations of CG, ownership, CG mechanisms and firm outcomes, disclosures, the board of directors, and family firms. We further find 19 major bibliographic keyword clusters that have been explored by researchers in the past 20 years. Research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability, governance mechanisms, control mechanisms and disclosures, board diversity, CG in family firms, and CG in the Chinese context are the most dynamic areas of research in recent years.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsWe systematically analyze the literature on CG and outline theoretical foundations, structuring academic contributions by keyword clusters. Links between keyword clusters as well as the most dynamic research areas are identified. The analysis provides guidance for researchers regarding suitable outlets for the different thematic clusters and helps as a basis to identify research opportunities.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsWe document growing research interest in the field of CSR and sustainability. The growing body of literature in these areas can inform CG and CSR policies in the future. Our comprehensive bibliographic analysis provides an overview of CG research themes across research disciplines and streams of the literature.

Advisors in Corporate Governance of Family Firms

This study examines how specialized advisors impact the implementation of good governance practices at the firm and family level. We applied a qualitative case study approach using four cases in four different industries with diverse levels of management sophistication. This revealed that firms’ governance structure outputs, such as a board of directors and general shareholder meetings, and the family governance outputs, for instance, family protocols and family councils, substantially improve with an advisors’ intervention. We highlighted the important but seldom studied in the academic literature of advisors’ role in designing a better governance structure at the business and family level and its implementation. We also stressed the importance of building confidence, transparency, and trust between the advisor and the family.

Family Ownership and Accrual-Based Earnings Management: Evidence from Tunisia

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of family shareholding and chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics on earnings management. We use panel data for a sample of 37 Tunisian non-financial listed firms over the period 2007–2017. We contribute to the literature on corporate governance in family firms by testing the effect of the presence of a family or a founder CEO on earnings management in Tunisia. Our results show that the family ownership and the presence of a family CEO (either founder or not) are positively and significantly associated with earnings management practices. These findings suggest that families’ dominance with a significant equity stake and a CEO position under control leads to an entrenchment effect resulting in poor earnings reporting quality.

Owner offspring gender and long‐term resource allocation in Chinese family firms

AbstractA long‐term orientation helps companies improve business performance and achieve sustainable competitive advantages. We use data for Chinese family firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen A‐share stock markets during the years 2000 and 2018. We examine the influence of owner offspring gender on family firms' long‐term resource allocation. We find a “son effect” in long‐term resource allocation among family firms, that is, owners raising sons tend to have a longer investment horizon and are more willing to increase innovation. This “son effect” is more significant for owners who were born in patriarchal regions where the social system is controlled or governed by men. We also find that son‐raising owners' long‐term resource allocation is mainly motivated by their willingness of intergenerational inheritance. This study fills a research gap regarding the influence of owner offspring gender on corporate long‐term resource allocation, enriches the literature on the heterogeneity of executive behavior and corporate governance of family firms, and provides important implications for understanding the decision making and long‐term investments of Chinese family firms.

Corporate Governance in Family Firms: towards a model based on Degree of Institutionalization (DI), Structuring Change (SC) and Destructuring Change (RC)

The family firm management literature underrates corporate governance issues both because in family firms the entrepreneur/owner tends to concentrate in his hands almost all the decision power and because the concept of family business is associated with that of small business. On the other hand, the ‘family’ character over firm governance have been traditionally analysed in terms of institutional overlap (family versus business) that causes processes of instability, conflicts, divisions and crisis, both inside the family and between owners and managers. Our paper, after an extremely literature recap, aims at proposing a different point of view on the corporate governance dynamics in family business and a different path to understand the change processes into this organizations adopting a Situationist View of the Organizations (SVO) that is focused on the continuous work of two processes: action and institutionalization, that build, break and rebuild social reality. Under this point of view some topics – institutional processes, coalitional games and power dynamics – suggest different considerations about the processes of governance and power. The concept of actor (or strategic actor) is of particular relevance. It refers to an individual (human actor) or, more often, a coalition of individuals able to act strategically for the protection of their specific interests. The concept of strategic actor goes far beyond the organizational boundaries, as often a coalition is composed by both internal and external members.

Inside the family firms: The impact of family and institutional ownership on executive remuneration

This study empirically examines the impact of ownership structure on executive remuneration of listed family firms in Malaysia. Fixed effects model as the panel analysis of 279-listed family firms from 2010 to 2014 shows that institutional investors could not represent the minority shareholders’ interest in curbing the expropriation via executive remuneration by the controlling family shareholders. When the firm CEOs are non-family directors, both domestic and foreign institutional investors could exert a significant negative impact on executive remuneration. Thus, this study provides a theoretical contribution by affirming that the Type-II agency conflict between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders in family firms is ameliorated when the firm CEOs have no family relationship with the controlling shareholders. In addition, this study also unveils that domestic and foreign institutional investors have a different impact on the executive remuneration, where the governance role of the former prevails over the latter. The findings of this study would be useful for the policy-makers and regulators such as Securities Commission Malaysia and Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group to assess the expropriation issue and corporate governance in family firms.

Family Firms and Compliance: Reconciling the Conflicting Predictions Within the Socioemotional Wealth Perspective

We draw on the socioemotional wealth perspective to examine the influence of family ownership on firms’ noncompliance with corporate governance codes. Our results yield an inverted U-shaped effect of family ownership on noncompliance. While the family influence and control dimension leads to high levels of noncompliance, socioworthiness stemming from image and reputation dimension lessens noncompliance. In the presence of potential agency conflict, the control dimension prevails over reputation, even in countries with strong governance institutions. Our findings have critical implications for family business theory, for governance policy making and also for better understanding corporate governance in family firms.

Corporate governance in family businesses from Latin America, Spain and Portugal

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to summarize what is known about corporate governance in family firms from Ibero-American countries based on published research. Methodology The authors conducted a literature search to identify the articles that have been published about the corporate governance of family firms in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal between 1980 and 2014. The authors found 38 articles that provide the sample for this review. Findings The results indicate that research on governance in Ibero-American family firms has focussed on understanding structures and processes related to the business and ownership systems. However, generalization of results across the region is difficult because of the lack of systematic approach of studies and the focus on a small number of countries. Research limitations/implications There are at least two limitations of this work: the small sample of projects identified for the review and the lack of systematic approach to research. Both of these may be due to the importance given to publishing the university context in this part of the world. As the culture of knowledge changes, the authors expect that research in this area will grow. Originality/value Although previous research indicates that cultural characteristics affect governance system choices and understanding of family firms, not many studies explore the importance of culture in governance choices of family firms. This paper provides a baseline of the understanding of governance in Ibero-American family firms, and identifies important area for future research.

Corporate governance in family firms, learning and reaction to recession: Evidence from Italy

This paper focuses on the interaction between internal and external factors explaining performance of small and medium-sized family firms. We used framework foresight to suggest how learning and internal factors such as CEO’s origin, tenure and turnover, could affect the firm’s reactions to one particular external factor, economic recession. The paper draws on empirical observations of a large sample of small and medium family firms operating in Italy between 2002 and 2011 to identify the baseline future, an expected future for these firms. This analysis may be of interest to both management scholars and practitioners. We hope to contribute to the debate on how internal and external factors interact to affect firm success, measured as sales growth. The implications for the future viability of an economic system based on family businesses are straightforward, as the turbulence and instability of the economic environment has grown significantly in the last decade, especially in more developed countries. Whether the ability of a company to adapt and survive to negative shocks depends on its governance provides a rationale for exploring alternative perspectives on the competitiveness of the economic system and the ability of different owners to cope with future negative events.

Corporate Governance Of Family Firms In Subsequent Generations

This paper addresses the differences in corporate governance regarding generations of Austrian and German family businesses. Generations differ from each other significantly with respect to the percentage of non-family executives in management boards. The existence of a supervisory board differs between founder and subsequent generations, but it turns out that with transfer of ownership to subsequent generations, there is no noticeable trend concerning the percentage of non-family members in supervisory boards. Thus, this study demonstrates the importance of a comprehensive and profound analysis of generation-specific characteristics.

Corporate Governance in Family Firms

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on the corporate governance in family controlled firms. In particular, it discusses conficts of interest between owner and manager (referred to as Agency Problem I) as well as between minority and large shareholders (referred to as Agency Problem II) among family frms under agency theory framework. It is widely believed that families are better monitors of managers than other types of large shareholders, suggesting that Agency Problem I are less prevalent in family than in non-family frms. On the other hand, it is also argued that controlling families may extract private benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. In addition, the governance literature indicates that several conventional governance tools for controlling Agency Problem are less efective in dealing with Agency Problem II. Keywords: Agency problems, corporate governance, family control, boards of directors

Inherited corporate control and returns on investment

This paper contributes to the literature on management in family firms by investigating how succession in family firms affects returns on investment. The identities of the chief executive officer (CEO) and the chairman of the board (COB) were used to establish whether the management of the firm can be characterized as founder, descendant, or external management. A unique, unbalanced panel data set on listed Swedish firms covering the period from 1990 to 2005 was used in the analysis. The results show that founder management has a positive effect on the returns on investment in family firms, whereas descendant management has a negative impact. An external CEO as a successor in family firms leads to more efficient investment policies with increased firm value as a result. That is, when studying corporate governance in family firms it is important to account for what type of management the firm has. Further studies are required to understand the relationship between ownership, control, management, and firm performance.

Firm family firms: Current debates of corporate governance in family firms

We reassess the effects of family ownership and strong family control on non-family minority and non-controlling shareholders. We argue that assumptions and interpretations regarding the cost and benefits of family ownership in the extant literature need to be understood relative to other firm governance arrangements. More specifically, we posit and examine the relevance of the private benefits of family control in two key circumstances: top executive succession and the nature of family business groups. Diverse outcomes are shown to be contingent on the national institutional settings where firms are located.

A Debate on Corporate Governance of Family Firms and Business Groups

This article reviews corporate governance literature of family firms and business groups which is relevant to Korean conglomerates. We summarize major issues on corporate governance for Korean conglomerates and classify studies according to those issues: existence of controlling shareholder, deviation from the one share-one vote principle, family members` participation in management, succession of control to family members, and the relationship between financial and industrial capital within business groups. Existing literature shows that firms with controlling shareholders are common globally. While many factors related to corporate governance impact firm value, they create both positive and negative ramifications in a nuanced manner. Also, corporate governance endogenously emerges under different circumstances-law, degree of market development, or management-union relations across countries. Thus, there is no strict standard corporate governance system that can apply to all family business groups in different countries. Proper frameworks for policy makers and managers will arise only in the particular contexts in which family business groups operate.