Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Corporate Finance

Singapore Management University

Family firms

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

How Inheritance Law Affects Family Firm Performance: Evidence From A Natural Experiment, Yong Kyu Gam, Min Jung Kang, Junho Park, Hojong Shin Feb 2020

How Inheritance Law Affects Family Firm Performance: Evidence From A Natural Experiment, Yong Kyu Gam, Min Jung Kang, Junho Park, Hojong Shin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We argue that changes in the inheritance system affect incentives leading to sibling rivalry among descendants and therefore have a material impact on family firm performance. Using South Korea's 1991 inheritance law reform that stipulates the equal distribution of a deceased person's property to descendants, we find that the performance and operating growth rate in family firms show significant enhancement compared with those of nonfamily firms. Moreover, the positive effects are greater for family firms that undergo a business succession with multiple sons and married daughters. Overall, our results suggest that changing to equal bequests of inheritance has a positive …


Conservatism And Equity Ownership Of The Founding Family, Shuping Chen, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng Jul 2014

Conservatism And Equity Ownership Of The Founding Family, Shuping Chen, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We investigate the impact of founding family ownership on accounting conservatism. Family ownership is characterised by large, under-diversified equity stake and long investment horizon. These features give family owners both the incentives and the ability to implement conservative financial reporting to reduce legal liability and mitigate agency conflicts with other stakeholders. Since CEOs can have different incentives towards conservatism, we focus on ownership of non-CEO founding family members in our investigation. We find that conservatism increases with non-CEO family ownership, supporting our prediction. This relationship becomes insignificant in family firms with founders serving as CEOs, either due to founder CEOs' …