A Family Member or a Professional Manager? The Role of Trust in the Choice of CEO in Family Firms

Using a sample of Chinese family firms from 2008–2015, we investigate the impact of trust on the choice of whether to hire a family member or a professional manager as CEO. We find that the presence of a professional CEO is negatively associated with a higher level of trust in family members. In contrast, it is positively associated with a higher level of trust in non-family members. Our findings suggest that the trust mode in Chinese family firms is like the ‘differential mode of association’, which describes Fei's (1992) social structure of Chinese society. Moreover, a higher level of trust in family members is associated with native entrepreneurial activities, which strengthens the negative relationship between trust in family and the presence of a professional CEO. Furthermore, the role of trust in family firms’ appointment decisions is more pronounced in regions with relatively weak legal protection and firms with relatively poor governance. Our results hold when we control for endogeneity and after a series of robustness checks. This research links the governance of family firms to the informal institution of trust, enriching the literature on trust and family firm behaviours.