TY - JOUR
T1 - Corporate social performance of family firms and shareholder protection
T2 - An international analysis
AU - Rehman, Atiqa
AU - Gonenc, Halit
AU - Hermes, Niels
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful for suggestions of Torsten Pieper (Editor), Giovanna Campopiano (Associate Editor) and three anonymous referees. We would also like to thank Ettore Croci, Omrane Guedhami, participants of the 2021 the International Family Enterprise Research Academy (IFERA) summer school and doctoral consortium, the brown bag seminar in Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, the EEF and SOM graduate school PhD seminars at University of Groningen, annual meetings of the European Financial Management Associatiion (EFMA) and International Finance and Banking Society (IFABS), and the 10th International Research Meeting in Business and Management for their valuable feedback.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
PY - 2023/6
Y1 - 2023/6
N2 - We study whether differences in shareholder protection by countries are important in explaining lower corporate social performance (CSP) of family firms vis-à-vis non-family firms. We create a dataset covering 46 countries for the period 2002–2016. Using a novel approach, we show that the difference in CSP of family firms relative to similar non-family firms is smaller when family firms experience stronger minority shareholder protection to reduce conflicts of interest than non-family firms do. Moreover, we find that the difference in CSP of family firms relative to similar non-family firms is larger when family firms experience stronger shareholders’ rights in corporate governance than non-family firms do. Our results support the view that differences in country-level shareholder protection play an important role in explaining the differences in CSP between family and non-family firms.
AB - We study whether differences in shareholder protection by countries are important in explaining lower corporate social performance (CSP) of family firms vis-à-vis non-family firms. We create a dataset covering 46 countries for the period 2002–2016. Using a novel approach, we show that the difference in CSP of family firms relative to similar non-family firms is smaller when family firms experience stronger minority shareholder protection to reduce conflicts of interest than non-family firms do. Moreover, we find that the difference in CSP of family firms relative to similar non-family firms is larger when family firms experience stronger shareholders’ rights in corporate governance than non-family firms do. Our results support the view that differences in country-level shareholder protection play an important role in explaining the differences in CSP between family and non-family firms.
KW - Behavioral agency theory
KW - Corporate social performance
KW - Family firms
KW - Shareholder protection
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85147368776&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jfbs.2022.100550
DO - 10.1016/j.jfbs.2022.100550
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85147368776
SN - 1877-8585
VL - 14
JO - Journal of Family Business Strategy
JF - Journal of Family Business Strategy
IS - 2
M1 - 100550
ER -