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1 – 10 of over 8000Stefan Prigge and Katharina J. Mengers
This chapter presents the current research status of family constitutions from an economics perspective. It locates the family constitution as part of the family and business…
Abstract
This chapter presents the current research status of family constitutions from an economics perspective. It locates the family constitution as part of the family and business governance structure of a family firm and the owner family. The typical structure and content of a family constitution are introduced. The chapter focuses on the status of research about family constitutions and provides a structured map for future research. With regard to extant research, it must be stated that the stock of literature is small. The contributions to literature are categorized in surveys; conceptual contributions; survey data; small sample, qualitative, empirical studies; and big sample, quantitative, empirical studies. The latter group includes three studies with a separate family constitution variable. This small number symbolizes that the family constitution still is an under-researched area. Therefore, family constitution research is far away from being able to answer central questions of advice-seeking owner families like, for example, whether a family constitution affects family performance, firm performance, or both; or whether the development process of a family constitutions disposes of an effect on family or firm performance separately from the hypothesized effect of the family constitution document.
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This chapter provides an introduction to the world of family companies and family constitutions from a legal perspective. It first studies the legal types of business…
Abstract
This chapter provides an introduction to the world of family companies and family constitutions from a legal perspective. It first studies the legal types of business organizations that family firms have chosen across time and jurisdictions. It then illustrates how early predecessors of family constitutions evolved in the late Middle Ages and what modern family constitutions look like in different countries today. Further considerations are devoted to the governance framework of family firms. The chapter concludes by exploring the potential legal effects of family constitutions under German company and contract law.
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Hafiz Muhammad Muien, Sabariah Nordin and Bazeet Olayemi Badru
As the benefit of gender diversity continues to receive significant attention, a holistic investigation of its effect on corporate financial distress (CFD) is lacking. Therefore…
Abstract
Purpose
As the benefit of gender diversity continues to receive significant attention, a holistic investigation of its effect on corporate financial distress (CFD) is lacking. Therefore, this study examines the effects of board gender diversity, measured in different forms, such as the presence and proportion of female directors, family-affiliated female directors and the chief executive officer (CEO) gender, on CFD in Pakistan. The study also investigates the interacting effects of family-controlled (20 and 50% family-owned) companies on the association between board gender diversity and CFD.
Design/methodology/approach
The study applied the pooled cross-sectional logistic regression model to examine the effect of board gender diversity (presence and proportion of female directors, family-affiliated female directors and CEO gender) on CFD through a sample of 285 non-financial companies in Pakistan over the period of 2006–2017.
Findings
The results reveal that gender diversity on boards is significantly and negatively associated with CFD in Pakistan. In addition, when family ownership is 50% or more, the interacting effect of family control is found to be significant, while gender effects remain negative. The results suggest that female directors contribute to the long-term viability of companies, especially family-owned companies. Female directors are also found to be more prevalent in family-owned companies compared to their non-family counterparts.
Research limitations/implications
The findings imply that female directors may efficiently manage and control all functions necessary to guarantee the company's long-term prosperity. Similarly, gender effects can outweigh the detrimental impact of family control when female directors are in reasonable numbers and of high quality in the boardroom.
Practical implications
The practical relevance of the findings is that female directors play a significant role on the corporate board. Thus, it is a wakeup call for Pakistani companies to recognize the critical role and uniqueness of women on the corporate ladder. Family companies can also galvanize on the uniqueness of women to improve their governance structure.
Originality/value
This study adds to the literature on the benefits of gender diversity in family and non-family-owned companies. Specifically, this study applied multiple measures of gender diversity and family control in a single study. In addition, the study was conducted in a country that is ranked as the second worst country in the Global Gender Gap Index 2022, implying that investigating this type of research would go a long way towards changing the minds of corporate executives and regulators about the critical role that women can play in the economy.
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Patrick Ulrich and Sarah Speidel
In recent years, the corporate governance structures of family businesses have become increasingly important to the public. This is due not only to the increasing number of…
Abstract
In recent years, the corporate governance structures of family businesses have become increasingly important to the public. This is due not only to the increasing number of corporate successions but also to the (still) lower degree of formalization of corporate governance in family-owned companies. In this chapter, the authors analyze theoretical and empirical findings on family governance with a focus on family constitution and present the results of their own exploratory empirical survey conducted in 2017.
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Husam Ananzeh, Malek Hamed Alshirah, Ahmad Farhan Alshira'h and Huthaifa Al-Hazaima
A key goal of this research is to examine empirically whether politically connected board members are likely to impact corporate philanthropy. A further goal of this study is to…
Abstract
Purpose
A key goal of this research is to examine empirically whether politically connected board members are likely to impact corporate philanthropy. A further goal of this study is to contribute to the existing literature by examining the moderating role of political connections on the relationship between family ownership and corporate donations.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the content analysis approach, the authors determined the level of cash and in-kind donations made by a group of 94 non-financial Jordanian companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange. This study examined 658 annual reports spanning over seven years from 2010 to 2016. Ordinary least squares regression (OLS) is used to test the study hypotheses. In addition, this study used the probit regression to validate those results reported by the OLS regression.
Findings
Compared to unconnected companies, politically connected companies in Jordan are more likely to donate to philanthropic causes. Moreover, the results revealed that the presence of significant family ownership shareholding in a firm can weaken the firm tendency to donate. Despite this, the regression analysis results indicate that family-controlled firms with political connections are more likely to engage in charitable giving activities compared to those without political nexuses.
Research limitations/implications
The study contributes to the conversation surrounding corporate giving and sheds light on the role political connections and ownership structure (particularly family-owned firms) play in affecting donations by firms.
Practical implications
Managers of Jordanian firms listed on the stock exchange can use the study's findings to make better decisions about their donations and other philanthropic activities.
Originality/value
This study is the first to examine the relationship between firm donations and political connections in Jordan, and how political nexuses can moderate the relationship between family ownership and corporate donations. Hence, it extends prior research significantly.
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Anna Motylska-Kuzma, Izabela Szymanska and Krzysztof Safin
This paper investigates the impact of family influence measured by the F-PEC scale on private enterprise (both family firms and lone founders) leadership succession strategy.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper investigates the impact of family influence measured by the F-PEC scale on private enterprise (both family firms and lone founders) leadership succession strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
The research dataset is comprised of 390 private enterprises whose head offices were situated in the voivodeships of Lower Silesia and Wielkopolska in Poland. The authors collected data through CAPI (computer-assisted personal interviewing) method, as well as through comprehensive, structured interviews with company owners. Data were analysed using hierarchical logistic regression for each type of succession strategy.
Findings
The results suggest that increased family influence does not necessarily lead to intra-family leadership succession in private enterprises. Importantly, a range of findings contradicted authors' predictions. The relationship between the overall F-PEC scale values signifying the multi-faceted family influence over the business and the choice of internal successor was weakly negative for the total sample; also, the higher the overlap between family and business values and the higher the commitment to family business, as evidenced by the Culture subscale, the lower was the occurrence of intra-family successor choice in the population of lone founders. The Culture subscale also increased the prevalence of lack of succession planning in the sample of lone founders.
Originality/value
While several studies suggests that family firms may be more prone to choose an intra-family succession scenario, it remains unclear how lower levels of business and succession experience, may influence the successor choice. Indeed, some studies suggest that a strong family influence over a business, may stimulate family firms to choose a family outsider as a business leader. Therefore, the key contribution of this study is contextualizing the response to an ongoing succession debate. This study investigates the strategic choices of companies in the first generation of ownership operating in Poland, which serves as an example of a post-transition economy. While the characteristics of this economic environment may be unique, the authors discuss how the surprising findings may add to the understanding of the general succession processes present in private enterprises.
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Torbjörn Ljungkvist and Börje Boers
The purpose of this study is to understand venture capital family businesses (VCFBs) governance of portfolio companies through the deal process.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to understand venture capital family businesses (VCFBs) governance of portfolio companies through the deal process.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applies a theory-developing approach. A model of VCFB governance is developed whose key aspects are illuminated by four examples (cases) of VCFBs.
Findings
Recent research suggests that a venture capital firm's corporate deal processes can be divided into the pre-deal, deal and post-deal phases. Based on the age, size and succession dimensions, propositions for how a governance trajectory develops for VCFBs, affecting the deal process of target family firms (TFFs), are presented. These propositions highlight how the family owners' actions and behavior are related to VCFB governance, which in turn, influences the three phases involved in making an investment.
Originality/value
The propositions suggest how personal and administrative VCFBs' governance of the deal process of portfolio companies is significantly affected by centrifugal and centripetal forces that drive the respective types of governance where third-generation family owners appear as changers of governance approach.
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Family constitutions are relatively new to the law of family companies, although there might have been forerunners in the history of entrepreneur families. The practical…
Abstract
Family constitutions are relatively new to the law of family companies, although there might have been forerunners in the history of entrepreneur families. The practical importance and the proliferation of family constitutions in German family companies are increasing, along with the discussion of family constitutions in legal literature. This new instrument of family governance is not law driven but business driven, it has been designed by business advisors. Its analysis and classification are still at the very beginning in academic research and practice. Even though family constitutions are generally deemed to be without any legal effect and not legally binding, from a legal point of view, this assumption is at least highly questionable.
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Hamada Elsaid Elmaasrawy, Omar Ikbal Tawfik and Khaled Hussainey
This study aims to examine the impacts of board chairman characteristics on the decision to finance with debts.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the impacts of board chairman characteristics on the decision to finance with debts.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on historical data from 173 active nonfinancial firms listed on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Stock Exchange Markets during 2012–2019, this research uses ordinary least squares (OLS) and dynamic system-generalized methods of moments to test its hypotheses. The final dataset comprises 1,384 firm-year observations from 10 major nonfinancial industry classifications.
Findings
Results indicate a negative impact of board chairman ownership on the decision to finance with retained earnings (RE). Negative effects of the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) from the same family on the decision to finance with RE, whereas positive effects of the chairman and CEO from the same family on the decision to finance with debts are observed. In addition, a negative effect of the chairman from a royal family on the decision to invest with debts is found.
Research limitations/implications
Many board chairmen characteristics, such as age, gender, experience, education level, periodic change and ethnicity, are unaddressed. Financial decisions (FDs) are also limited to two decisions (internal financing with RE and external financing with debts).
Practical implications
Findings of this study provide an improved understanding of the role of chairman characteristics in FDs in GCC. Investors and lenders dealing with companies in GCC markets benefit from the authors' results because of the effects of chairman characteristics on FDs when making investment decisions in company stocks.
Originality/value
The study clarifies how each of the three board chairman characteristics (i.e. chairman ownership, chairman and CEO from the same family and the chairman from the royal family) affects FDs, especially the decisions to finance with debts and RE.
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Hind Shafeeq Nimr Al-Maliki, Mahdi Salehi and Behzad Kardan
This study aims to assess the effect of the COVID 19 on small and medium-sized family firms’ risk-taking in Iraq.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to assess the effect of the COVID 19 on small and medium-sized family firms’ risk-taking in Iraq.
Design/methodology/approach
Data was collected by distributing the questioners. The statistical population consists of 600 employers and small and medium-sized family and non-family firm managers. Hypothesis analysis was carried out after evaluating the questionnaire’s validity and reliability using the structural equation method.
Findings
The results indicate that COVID 19 influences small and medium-size family and non-family firms’ risk-taking.
Originality/value
Since no study carried out so far on the effect of COVID 19 on risk-taking of family and non-family Iraqi small- and medium-enterprise firms and since the political-economic condition of Iraq has been affected recently due to the presence of ISIS, its effects, as well as the civil war that taken place before COVID 19, assessing such a topic can contribute to the development of science and knowledge in this field.
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