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This study examines the effect of lone founder and family ownership on borrowing cost. In addition, the study examines the moderating influence of gender diversity on this relationship.

The study used a sample of non-financial firms listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange over the period 2012–2021. The authors used ordinary least squares regression analysis method to test the hypotheses along with generalized method of moments estimation technique to control for unobserved heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity.

The authors report that borrowing cost is higher in lone founder ownership, whereas borrowing cost is lower in family firms due to lesser risks attached to such firms by lenders. Further, the presence of female directors on the board weakens this relation in the case of lone founder ownership, whereas their presence further reduces borrowing cost in family-owned firms. Additionally, using the framework of critical mass theory, the authors found that higher number of female directors on boards reduces borrowing cost. Overall, this study’s results provide empirical support for social identity and critical mass theories in the sample firms.

The study provides novel evidence of the influence of lone founder and family ownership on borrowing cost in an emerging economy, as well as the moderating effects of gender diversity on this relationship.

This paper aims to explore the impact of family ownership, and family commitment on employees' organizational identification (EOI) with Chinese family firms, and to test the mediating effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on this relationship.

The result reveals that family commitment positively influences employees’ organizational identification (EOI) with Chinese family firms. It is also shown that insiders’ responsibility (i.e. investors’ and employees’ responsibility) and public responsibility (i.e. community responsibility) positively influence EOI, and partially mediate the relationship between family commitment and EOI with Chinese family firms. In addition, the result indicates that family ownership positively influences insiders’ responsibility (i.e. investors’, and employees’ responsibility), outsiders’ responsibility (i.e. consumers’ responsibility), environmental responsibility and legal and ethical responsibility, and family commitment positively moderates the relationship between family ownership and insiders’ responsibility (i.e. investors’ and employees’ responsibility), outsiders’ responsibility (i.e. partners’ and consumers’ responsibility) and public responsibility (i.e. environmental responsibility) in Chinese family firms.

This study is the first to examine empirically the relationship between family involvement (i.e. family ownership, family commitment) and EOI from the viewpoint of CSR in Chinese family firms. The study contributes to the understanding of the relationship between family involvement and EOI, as well as the understanding of the influence of CSR on EOI with Chinese family firms.

This article investigates the relationship between family ownership and export performance in the context of SMEs while also considering the moderating role of the financial dimension and, in particular, financial constraints and financial flexibility.

We select a sample of 1,132 Italian SMEs to examine through an econometric analysis the role and impact of family ownership and the financial moderating variables being used on their export performance.

The results indicate that there is a U-shaped relationship between family ownership and export performance: the highest levels of export performance correspond to the lowest and highest family ownership levels, whereas when a mixture of family and nonfamily ownership exists, the performance suffers because of “conflicting voices” dominating strategic visions and approaches, harming the firm's export commitment. Moreover, the findings show that lower financial constraints and/or stronger financial flexibility improve the relationship between family ownership and export performance.

Our findings show that the ownership structure is important for export performance; in particular, firms should avoid a mixture between family and nonfamily ownership because it is detrimental to export performance. Moreover, Italian SMEs need to develop sources of financing other than the banking channel, and policy makers should favour this process to overcome financial constraint problems and improve financial flexibility. Limitations concern the use of other econometric approaches and measurement variables to further investigate the connection between family ownership and export performance.

The present study enhances the comprehension of the complex relationship between family ownership and export performance by documenting the relevance of the level of family ownership and considering the moderating role of financial constraints and flexibility.

This research aims to examine the effect of ownership structure on dividend policy using the Indonesian context. The most common ownership structure is concentrated in the hand of family owners except in the UK and USA (La Porta et al., 1998, 2000). Family owners hold more than half of the companies in Indonesia (Carney & Child, 2013; Claessens et al., 2000). Family firms play an important role in Indonesia. Another important characteristic that emerges is the rise of government- and foreign-controlled firms in Indonesia. Thus, this research also divides ownership concentration into family firms, government-controlled and foreign-controlled firms.

Samples of this research consist of dividend announcements during 2006-2012 in Indonesian Stock Exchange. This research excluded financial data because these have characteristics that are different non-financial sectors’ characteristics. The final sample of this research consists of a 710 firm-year observation.

The result of this research shows that ownerships have a positive effect on dividend payout. This research divides the sample into family-controlled firms, government-controlled firms (GOEs) and foreign-controlled firms. This research shows that government- and foreign-controlled firms have a positive impact on dividend payout. However, family firms have a negative effect on the dividend payout. Family firms pay lower dividends because they prefer to control it themselves. Family firms earn benefit from those resources, but at the expense of minority shareholders. Thus, family firms engage in expropriation to minority shareholders.

This study focuses on ownership structure of Indonesian listed firm. This study does not analyze the impact of other corporate governance mechanism such as board structure on dividend decisions. The owner of the companies (family, government and foreign firm) has an opportunity to put their member as part of board members. However, this study does not analyze the impact of board structure on dividend decisions.

This study provides evidence that ownership concentration positively affects dividend payout. However, there is a different effect of ownership structure (family-controlled firms, GOEs and foreign-controlled firm). Government- and foreign-controlled have a positive effect; however, family-controlled firm have a negative effect on dividend payout. Therefore, this study provides evidence of the importance of ownership structure on dividend decision.

Based on the socio-emotional wealth and agency theories, this study empirically investigates the impact of family ownership and management on green innovation (GI) in family businesses, as well as the moderating effects of institutional environmental support factors, namely, the technological achievement marketisation index and the market-rule-of law index.

This study empirically tests the hypotheses based on a sample of listed Chinese family companies with A-shares in 14 heavily polluting industries from 2009 to 2019.

There is a U-shaped relationship between the percentage of family ownership and GI, and an inverted U-shaped relationship between the degree of family management and GI. Additionally, different institutional environmental support factors affect these relationships in different ways. As the technological achievement marketisation index increases, the U-shaped relationship between the percentage of family ownership and GI becomes steeper, while the inverted U-shaped relationship between the degree of family management and GI becomes smoother. The market rule-of-law index weakens the U-shaped relationship between family ownership and GI.

First, the authors enrich the research on the driving factors of GI from the perspective of the most essential heterogeneity of family businesses. This study shows nonlinear and opposite effects of family ownership and management on GI in family firms. Second, this study contributes to the literature on family firm innovation. GI, not considered by researchers, is regarded as an important deficiency in research on innovation in family businesses. Therefore, this study fills that gap. Third, the study expands research on moderating effects in the literature on GI from the perspective of institutional environmental support factors.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how family firm ownership and management control affect corporate capital structure strategy after controlling for other significant variables. The authors argue that, although family ownership has a positive effect on a firm’s leverage, family control through the CEO position and equity performance moderate its impact.

Using a stratified random sample of 200 US public firms in the S & P Small-Cap 600 index from 1999 to 2007, this study uses random effect panel regressions to test the impact of family ownership on market value and book value debt ratios and the moderating effects of family control and equity performance after controlling for firm, industry, and macroeconomic variables.

The initial panel regression suggests that family ownership is not related to debt ratios. However, further examination with controls for family CEO and equity performance shows that family ownership is positively related to market and book value debt ratios, but its effect is offset by family control through the CEO position and equity performance.

This study’s methodology can be extended to examine how family firm governance factors affect other firm behaviors such as investment, risk management, and CEO compensation.

Practitioners should consider family ownership and management control factors when establishing financing strategy. The Small Business Administration and other government agencies should make similar considerations when setting policies.

This paper separates ownership and management control factors to explain why family firms use more or less leverage. This study, thus, reconciles the mixed results of prior studies, which do not differentiate between these two governance factors.

In many countries, small and medium-sizes enterprises (SMEs) are primarily responsible for wealth, economic growth, innovation and research and development. In this paper, the authors examine the impact of family ownership and owner involvement on the financial performance of unlisted Finnish SMEs.

This is an empirical paper using a random sample of 1,137 non-listed Finnish SMEs. Through regression analyses and robustness tests, the authors examine the effects of family management, family and employee ownership and involvement.

Using profitability measures, the authors find family-owned and controlled SMEs perform significantly better than non-family firms. The number of family members actively involved in daily business operations bears a significant negative relation to firm performance. In contrast, non-family firms in which owners are actively involved, provide comparable returns to family firms, suggesting that in non-family firms active involvement contributes to performance. The authors find that employee ownership in SMEs does not provide an efficient way to compensate employees since more dispersed ownership does not lead to higher performance.

SME employee ownership does not provide an efficient way to compensate employees since more dispersed ownership does not lead to higher performance.

In the case of Finland, family ownership is an effective organisational structure. As the depth of the COVID pandemic remains uncertain, firms with committed ownership are key to the economic recovery.

The authors approach the family ownership and involvement issue from a different angle. Unlike earlier studies, the authors examine the impact of both family ownership and involvement on the financial performance of privately owned SMEs. This paper helps shed light on the role of family ownership and involvement as a possible explanatory factor of overall economic performance.

The purpose of this paper is to unveil how family involvement in management teams of private Chinese companies affects professional managers’ psychological ownership and sense of “us”, in the hopes of understanding why their devotion cannot coexist with the higher level of commitment of family managers.

This paper includes two main studies. The first uses regression to analyze survey data provided by 165 professional managers working in Chinese private companies. The second is a scenario experiment in which 106 MBA candidates participate.

The study finds that there is a negative relationship between family management involvement and professional managers’ perceived relationship closeness to owners and psychological ownership of firms. It also finds that relationship closeness fully mediates the negative influence of family management involvement on managers’ psychological ownership.

This paper contributes to both the theoretical literature and management practice. From a theoretical perspective, it connects studies in indigenous sociological psychology with new literature on psychological ownership. The paper finds that personal relationships nurture the shared psychological ownership of managers by generating a sense of “us”, providing a new theoretical explanation for its formation process. Furthermore, this study offers an explanation for the negative signal effect of family involvement in management. From a practical perspective, this study finds that family involvement in management acts as a critical boundary condition for using personal relationships to stimulate professional managers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of psychological ownership (both job and organisational based) on extra-role behaviours among family and non-family employees in small overseas Chinese family businesses.

Empirical evidence was drawn from a survey of 80 family owners/managers and non-family employees from 40 small overseas Chinese family businesses from the transport industry in Malaysia. All proposed hypothesis were tested using hierarchical moderated regression analyses.

Job-based psychological ownership was found to significantly predict both types of extra-role behaviours. Organisational-based psychological ownership, however, was only a significant predictor of voice extra-role behaviour. Interestingly enough, no significant moderating effects on the relationships between the two dimensions of psychological ownership and two types of extra-role behaviour were found.

Having a dedicated workforce of both family and non-family employees who are willing to display extra-role behaviours may be considered as an essential component of business success and long-term continuity for many family firms around the world. This particular paper represents one of the few empirical efforts to examine the extra-role behaviours of employees in family firms from emerging economies.

This paper investigates the role of board independence in determining the relationship between firm ownership and auditor choice.

The research uses a logistic regression to test the direct and indirect effects of ownership structure on the decision to hire a high-quality (Big 4) audit firm. The sample consists of 207 non-financial firms listed on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries stock markets between 2009 and 2016.

Empirical findings show that family ownership is associated with a negative and significant coefficient suggesting that an increase in family ownership decreases the likelihood that the firm will employ a Big 4 auditor. This finding suggests that family owners are reluctant to impose external monitoring. Furthermore, we find a positive relationship between institutional ownership and auditor choice supporting the conjecture that institutional investors are more likely to choose a Big 4 auditor. The results also reveal that the effects of family and institutional ownership on auditor choice are partially mediated by independent directors.

This study has important implications for GCC economies whose policymakers and regulators may need to address the conflict between controlling and non-controlling shareholders. It provides guidance for firms in the construction and implementation of their own corporate governance policies. Furthermore, the study findings may be useful to investors, assisting them in making better informed decisions and aids other interested parties in gaining a better understanding of the role played by ownership structure in the quality of auditors. Finally, the paper highlights the importance of the composition of the board of directors in increasing the likelihood of hiring a high-quality audit firm.

The main contribution of the present paper is to examine the board composition as a potential mediating variable between ownership structure and auditor choice. Moreover, it highlights the issue of improving governance mechanisms.