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Research Collection School Of Accountancy

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Family firms

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Full-Text Articles in Business

Family Firms And Labor Market Regulation, Morten Bennedsen, Sterling Huang, Hannes F. Wagner, Stefan Zeume Sep 2019

Family Firms And Labor Market Regulation, Morten Bennedsen, Sterling Huang, Hannes F. Wagner, Stefan Zeume

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In a panel across twenty-eight countries over 10 years, we show that family firms on average enjoy performance advantages over nonfamily firms only when labor markets are less regulated. We confirm this result in a matched firm sample using a survey-based instrument as a family control. Furthermore, family firms exhibit lower variation in employment levels in less-regulated labor markets, supporting the notion that labor relations drive family firms’ performance advantages. Our results are consistent with the notion that both family ownership and labor market reforms provide employment protection and thus partly substitute as governance mechanisms.


Family Firm Research: A Review, Qiang Cheng Sep 2014

Family Firm Research: A Review, Qiang Cheng

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This article reviews family firm studies in the finance and accounting literature, primarily those conducted using data from the United States and China. Family owners have unique features such as concentrated ownership, long investment horizon, and reputation concerns. Given the distinguishing features of family ownership and control, family firms face unique agency conflicts. We discuss the agency problems in family firms and review the findings of recent family firm studies. We call for more research to understand the unique family effects and encourage more research on Chinese family firms. Part I of the article discusses the fundaments of family firms: …


Are Family Firms More Tax Aggressive Than Non-Family Firms?, Shuping Chen, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng, Terry Shevlin Jan 2010

Are Family Firms More Tax Aggressive Than Non-Family Firms?, Shuping Chen, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng, Terry Shevlin

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Taxes represent a significant cost to the firm and shareholders, and it is generally expected that shareholders prefer tax aggressiveness. However, this argument ignores potential non-tax costs that can accompany tax aggressiveness, especially those arising from agency problems. Firms owned/run by founding family members are characterized by a unique agency conflict between dominant and small shareholders. Using multiple measures to capture tax aggressiveness and founding family presence, we find that family firms are less tax aggressive than their non-family counterparts, ceteris paribus. This result suggests that family owners are willing to forgo tax benefits to avoid the non-tax cost of …