Governance structure and performance of private family firms

Authors

Tarun Mukherjee
Vighneshwara Swami
Wei Wang, Cleveland State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-4-2019

Publication Title

Journal of Economics and Finance

Keywords

family firms, ownership structure, financial performance, governance

Disciplines

Business | Corporate Finance | Finance and Financial Management

Abstract

A debate exists on the issue of whether a governance system is value additive or even necessary for a privately-held firm. One side of the debate suggests that, since agency problems do not exist in a small private firm, it does not need a costly governance system. The other side argues that a private firm indeed faces agency costs in the form of altruism and, therefore, could extract net gains from a governance system. In this paper, we empirically investigate whether a good governance system crates or destroys value of private family firms. We first demonstrate that a multifamily firm encounters larger agency costs stemming from inter-family conflicts, and therefore, has larger incentive than a single-family firm to institute a superior governance system. We then show that a multifamily firm, owing to its better governance system, outperforms its single-family counterpart.

Recommended Citation

Mukherjee, Tarun; Swami, Vighneshwara; and Wang, Wei, "Governance structure and performance of private family firms" (2019). Business Faculty Publications. 282.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/bus_facpub/282

DOI

10.1007/s12197-018-9466-6

Publisher's Statement

This is the accepted and peer-reviewed version of a work appearing in the Journal of Economics and Finance. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s12197-018-9466-6

Volume

43