Cash holdings and corporate governance in family-controlled firms

This study examines the association between corporate governance and cash policy within family-controlled firms. Family businesses are complex, because, in addition to dealing with common business requirements and opportunities, they must consider the needs and desires of the family owners. The results of this study show that the impact of corporate governance, with its separation of control rights and cash flow rights, director-ownership-in-pledge ratio and proportion of independent directors on cash policy, differs between family-controlled and nonfamily-controlled firms. Separation of seat control rights and cash flow rights, as well as chair duality, significantly affects the cash policy within different levels of cash holdings in firms.     

CEO duality leadership and corporate diversification behavior

This study examines an important, yet understudied relationship between CEO duality and corporate diversification. Results based on the data collected from Fortune 1000 U.S companies indicate that CEO duality is positively associated with corporate diversification into unrelated industries. Further analyses reveal that this relationship is moderated by a number of corporate governance mechanisms. We find that board equity ownership and institutional ownership concentration weaken the initially positive relationship between CEO duality and unrelated diversification while CEO tenure and board independence strengthen this relationship.     

Firm entry and turnover: the nexus with profitability and growth

The paper presents a new sectoral taxonomy, which classifies industries according to the opportunity and cost of experimentation. Econometric tests show for a sample of 24 countries that in the 1990s ‘entrepreneurial’ industries with a mutable and growing firm population experienced the highest growth in terms of value added and employment, but also the lowest growth of labour productivity. ‘Entrepreneurial’ industries generally earned a better profit-ratio than ‘routinised’ industries with an inertial population. The results are consistent with entrepreneurial theories of market competition, which suggest that entry follows profit opportunities but does not deplete them.      

Large Firms and Business Groups in Latin America: Towards a Theory Based,Contextually Relevant Research Agenda

ABSTRACT

Large firms play an essential role in national competitiveness and economic development. With a goal of establishing a research agenda that is both well grounded in relevant theory and that addresses important challenges facing the region, in this paper we examine the organization and operation of large, privately owned firms in Latin America. As has been the case since at least the end of the 19th century, studies have found that Latin American firms are organized into business groups and continue to be owned and managed by families. We probe into the strengths and weaknesses of the Latin American version of business organization, including how groups are financed, their efforts to partner and/or compete with industrialized country multinationals (MNCs), and their chances of success in a global economy. Relying on recent advances in agency and institutional theory, we then develop a number of research propositions and suggestions for future research.

RESUMEN. Grandes empresas juegan un papel esencial en el desarrollo económico y logro de la competitividad nacional. En este estudio examinamos la organización y operación de grandes empresas privadas latinoamericanas, con el propósito de establecer una agenda de investigación profundamente arraigada en importantes datos teóricos y enfocando, concomitantemente, los relevantes retos que enfrenta la región. Tal cual ocurre por lo menos desde fines del siglo XIX, los estudios realizados comprobaron que las empresas latinoamericanas están organizadas en grupos comerciales, y continúan siendo propiedad de y administradas por grupos familiares. Investigamos las fuerzas y debilidades de la versión latinoamericana de las organizaciones comerciales, y también analizamos cómo se financiaban estos grupos, los esfuerzos que realizaban para igualarse a o competir con las multinacionales de los países industrializados (MNCs), y qué posibilidad tenían de ser exitosas dentro del contexto de la economía global. Confiando en los recientes progresos alcanzados por la teoría institucional y de las agencias, desarrollamos varias hipótesis investigatorias, y sugerencias para futuros estudios.

RESUMO. Grandes empresas desempenham um papel essencial na competitividade nacional e no desenvolvimento econômico. Com o objetivo de estabelecer uma agenda de pesquisa que ao mesmo tempo seja alicerçada em bases teóricas relevantes e trate de importantes desafios enfrentados pela região, nós examinamos, neste artigo, a estrutura organizacional e a operação de grandes empresas privadas na América Latina. Como tem sido o caso desde pelo menos o fim do século 19, estudos têm revelado que empresas latino-americanas se estruturam em grupos de negócios e continuam pertencendo e sendo dirigidas por famílias. Nós nos concentramos em pesquisar os pontos fortes e fracos da versão latino-americana de organizaç[otilde]es de negócios, incluindo como os grupos são financiados, seus esforços em estabelecer parcerias e/ou competir com multinacionais de países industrializados (MNCs), e suas chances de sucesso em uma economia globalizada. Baseados nos recentes avanços da teoria organizacional, nós elaboramos, então, uma série de perguntas de pesquisa e sugest[otilde]es para pesquisas futuras.     

Corporate governance and family business performance

Family business continuity plans commonly establish a governance structure for the family and for the family business. The purpose of those structures is to improve strategy and control mechanisms of the family business and, to organize the communication and relationship between family owners and business executives. This research focuses on assessing the impact of those structures on family business performance. Specifically, the study assesses the impact a professional board of directors has on a company's performance. The research team selected a set of 22 family businesses. Some of these families have undergone a process of developing a family protocol over the last seven years. The authors captured the relevant information for this research by sending out a survey to each family member and to each non-family director or executive.     

Beating the recession blues: Exploring the link between family ownership,strategic marketing behavior and firm performance during recessions

This study explores whether family firms exhibit unique marketing behavior and whether their unique behavior in turn helps them outperform non-family firms during periods of economic contraction. Findings based on a sample of 275 large publicly listed U.S. firms reveal that family firms outperform non-family firms during recessions. This superior performance is partially driven by family firms' proactive marketing behavior and their relatively strong emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR). During recessions, while non-family firms tend to decrease their advertising intensities and rates of new product introduction (NPI), family firms are likely to maintain relatively high levels of advertising intensity and rates of NPI. Unlike non-family firms, family firms are also likely to maintain high levels of corporate social performance (CSP) during recessions. These results underscore the benefits of proactive marketing behavior and a continued emphasis on CSR during economic downturns. The authors also add to the scant family-firm literature, demonstrating the family firm to be an effective organizational form.     

Variance decomposition of the country,industry, firm,and firm-year effects on dividend policy

Why some firms distribute generous cash dividends while others are reluctant to do so remains an unanswered question despite decades of scholarly examination. Although the extant literature on dividend policy has explored the effects of determinants at the country, industry, firm, and firm-year levels, it remains unclear whether and how much each level of analysis matters to dividend policy. Consequently, this study seeks to move the literature forward by decomposing the variance at each level associated with dividend policies in a global sample of 8903 firms over an 11-year time period. We employ hierarchical linear modeling and find that all four levels of analysis help to explain dividend policy, but the firm and firm-year effects account for the majority of variance. Furthermore, decomposing the variance within each year reveals that the firm level has the strongest effect on dividend policy. Finally, while the variance in dividend policy explained by each level varies according to the dividend policy measure used, it is largely stable over our study period. We discuss implications of these findings for future research on dividend policy and for the field of comparative corporate governance.     

Entrepreneurial orientation and performance in private family firms: A configurational model

The relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and performance has received considerable attention from the family business literature. However, little is known about how EO, organizational parameters, and environmental characteristics act in combination to influence family firm performance. Drawing on the socioemotional wealth perspective, this study proposes a configurational model that considers the performance implications of EO, family management, and environmental dynamism. The empirical analysis indicates that the combination of family management, low EO, and low environmental dynamism engenders the best performance. The paper contributes to the family entrepreneurship literature by identifying the conditions under which EO leads to improved performance in family firms, and answers a recent call for more context‐based investigations of the performance effects of family managers. © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Information Sharing,Price Negotiation and Management Buy-outs of Private Family-owned Firms

Perspectives relating to agency theory, information asymmetries and game theory were utilized to explore two outcomes associated with the management buy-out (MBO) or management buy-in (MBI) of former private firms: whether information was shared equally between vendors (i.e., family firm owners) and purchasers (i.e., MBO/I management teams) and whether a mutually agreed price was achieved. With reference to the themes of company ownership structure, governance structure and company objectives several hypotheses were derived. Survey evidence was gathered from the managers of 114 former private family-owned firms located across Europe that recently reported an MBO/I. Multiple logistic regression analysis detected that respondents in founded (first generation) family firms and those reporting a high focus on the strategic importance of the market value increment were more likely to report that ‘information was shared equally between vendors and purchasers’. Respondents reporting no suitable family successor had been identified, a high focus on the strategic importance of the market value increment, and the involvement of venture capitalists in succession planning were more likely to report that a mutually agreed sale price had been achieved. Implications for practitioners and researchers are discussed.      

Private Firms and Corporate Governance: An Integrated Economic and Management Perspective

This article provides a definition of corporate␣governance and highlights the challenges in adapting understanding of governance to the privately-held firm. We emphasize the need to develop the scope of governance in privately-held firms beyond the traditional agency theory focus in the financial economics literature relating to large publicly-listed corporations. There is a need to draw on and integrate an array of theoretical perspectives from both economics and other social science disciplines as well. We present a schematic model of corporate governance which places the contributions presented in the special issue in context and which serves as a guide to highlighting gaps in the research base. We review the principal issues relating to corporate governance in privately-held firms which relate to: governance in different organizational contexts (institutional context; the industrial sector within which the firm finds itself, the ownership context of the firm, and the stage within the firm’s life-cycle); the scope of corporate governance; and other internal governance mechanisms to be considered We identify areas for further research on corporate governance in privately-held firms with respect to processes of governance, organizational contexts, assumptions about the owners, executive remuneration, financial reporting, the nature of the dependent variable relating to the expected outcome of different approaches to governance and various methodological issues. We suggest a need to develop governance codes for privately-held firms that are flexible enough to take account of the different types of governance needs of firms at different stages in their life-cycle.