IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-02276698.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Exploring the agency consequences of ownership dispersion among the directors of private family firms

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Lubatkin

    (EM - EMLyon Business School)

  • William S. Schulze
  • Richard N. Dino

Abstract

Using an agency-theoretic lens and insights drawn from the behavioral economics and family business literatures, this study developed hypotheses concerning the effect of dispersion of ownership on the use of debt by private family-owned and family-managed firms. A field study of 1,464 family firms was conducted. Results suggest that, during periods of market growth, the relationship between the use of debt and the dispersion of ownership among directors at family firms can be graphed as a U-shaped curve. The nonlinear relationship suggests that family firms are most vulnerable to conflict, and least willing to bear added risk, when ownership is split in relatively equal proportions. Interestingly, the fact that this distribution appeared in only 22% of the sample firms suggests that most family firm owners may take such risk into consideration when making their estate plans

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Lubatkin & William S. Schulze & Richard N. Dino, 2003. "Exploring the agency consequences of ownership dispersion among the directors of private family firms," Post-Print hal-02276698, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02276698
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02276698
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-02276698/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglas Holtz-Eakin & David Joulfaian & Harvey S. Rosen, 1993. "The Carnegie Conjecture: Some Empirical Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 413-435.
    2. Fama, Eugene F & Jensen, Michael C, 1983. "Agency Problems and Residual Claims," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 327-349, June.
    3. M. Teresa Lunati, 1997. "Ethical Issues in Economics," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-37358-7.
    4. Marta A. Geletkanycz, 1997. "The salience of ‘culture’s consequences’: the effects of cultural values on top executive commitment to the status quo," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(8), pages 615-634, September.
    5. J. Justin Tan & Robert J. Litsschert, 1994. "Environment‐strategy relationship and its performance implications: An empirical study of the chinese electronics industry," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 1-20, January.
    6. Patricia McDougall & Richard B. Robinson, 1990. "New venture strategies: An empirical identification of eight ‘archetypes’ of competitive strategies for entry," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(6), pages 447-467, October.
    7. Thaler, Richard H & Shefrin, H M, 1981. "An Economic Theory of Self-Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(2), pages 392-406, April.
    8. Oded Stark & Ita Falk, 2000. "Transfers, Empathy Formation, and Reverse Transfers," International Economic Association Series, in: L.-A. Gérard-Varet & S.-C. Kolm & J. Mercier Ythier (ed.), The Economics of Reciprocity, Giving and Altruism, chapter 8, pages 174-181, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Kroll, Mark & Wright, Peter & Theerathorn, Pochera, 1993. "Whose interests do hired top managers pursue? An examination of select mutual and stock life insurers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 133-148, February.
    10. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 1999. "Corporate Ownership Around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 471-517, April.
    11. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, March.
    12. Demsetz, Harold, 1973. "Industry Structure, Market Rivalry, and Public Policy," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 1-9, April.
    13. Srabana Gupta & Richard E. Romano, 1998. "Monitoring the Principal with Multiple Agents," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(2), pages 427-442, Summer.
    14. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation : An empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 293-315, January.
    15. William S. Schulze & Michael H. Lubatkin & Richard N. Dino & Ann K. Buchholtz, 2001. "Agency Relationships in Family Firms: Theory and Evidence," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(2), pages 99-116, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. William S. Schulze & Michael H. Lubatkin & Richard N. Dino & Ann K. Buchholtz, 2001. "Agency Relationships in Family Firms: Theory and Evidence," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(2), pages 99-116, April.
    2. Schulze, William S. & Lubatkin, Michael H. & Dino, Richard N., 2003. "Toward a theory of agency and altruism in family firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 473-490, July.
    3. William S. Schulze & Michael H. Lubatkin & Richard N. Dino, 2002. "Altruism, agency, and the competitiveness of family firms," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4-5), pages 247-259.
    4. Khosa,Amrinder & Ahmed,Kamran & Henry,Darren, 2019. "Ownership Structure, Related Party Transactions, and Firm Valuation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108492195.
    5. Chrisman, James J. & Chua, Jess H. & Steier, Lloyd P. & Wright, Mike & McKee, D’Lisa N., 2012. "An agency theoretic analysis of value creation through management buy-outs of family firms," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 197-206.
    6. Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung, 2003. "Agency Problems in Large Family Business Groups," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 27(4), pages 367-382, October.
    7. Weiß, Christian, 2010. "The Ownership Concentration of Firms: Three Essays on the Determinants and Effects," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 30247, July.
    8. James J. Chrisman, 2019. "Stewardship Theory: Realism, Relevance, and Family Firm Governance," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 43(6), pages 1051-1066, November.
    9. Yong Wang & Pervaiz Ahmed & Stuart Farquhar, 2007. "Founders versus Descendants," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 16(2), pages 173-195, July.
    10. Hearn, Bruce, 2011. "The performance and the effects of family control in North African IPOs," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 140-151, June.
    11. González, Maximiliano & Guzmán, Alexander & Pombo, Carlos & Trujillo, María Andréa, 2013. "Corporate governance mechanisms in family firms: Evidence from CEO turnovers," Galeras. Working Papers Series 037, Universidad de Los Andes. Facultad de Administración. School of Management.
    12. Toru Yoshikawa & Abdul A. Rasheed, 2010. "Family Control and Ownership Monitoring in Family‐Controlled Firms in Japan," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 274-295, March.
    13. Oriana Bandiera & Renata Lemos & Andrea Prat & Raffaella Sadun, 2018. "Managing the Family Firm: Evidence from CEOs at Work," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(5), pages 1605-1653.
    14. Yusuf, Fatima & Yousaf, Amna & Saeed, Abubakr, 2018. "Rethinking agency theory in developing countries: A case study of Pakistan," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 281-292.
    15. Michael, Steven C., 2003. "First mover advantage through franchising," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 61-80, January.
    16. Luis R. Gomez‐Mejia & Marianna Makri & Martin Larraza Kintana, 2010. "Diversification Decisions in Family‐Controlled Firms," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 223-252, March.
    17. Qian, Meifen & Sun, Ping-Wen & Yu, Bin, 2018. "Top managerial power and stock price efficiency: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 20-38.
    18. Randall Morck, 2011. "Finance and Governance in Developing Economies," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 375-406, December.
    19. Attiya Y. Javid & Robina Iqbal, 2010. "Corporate Governance in Pakistan : Corporate Valuation, Ownership and Financing," Governance Working Papers 22830, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    20. Peter Jaskiewicz & Joern H. Block & James G. Combs & Danny Miller, 2017. "The Effects of Founder and Family Ownership on Hired CEOs’ Incentives and Firm Performance," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 41(1), pages 73-103, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02276698. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.