IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v193y2025ics0148296325001717.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Media reactions to family Firms’ downsizing and upsizing decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Fourné, Sebastian P.L.
  • Kremer, Rico
  • Zschoche, Miriam

Abstract

The media is an important stakeholder when firms announce restructuring decisions. We argue that journalists’ reactions vary depending on what is associated with family firms and non-family firms in terms of employment practices and whether it is a negative or a positive restructuring (downsizing vs. upsizing). Both types of restructuring may create a cognitive dissonance with the family firm image. Empirically, we analyze the media reactions to announcements of all major restructuring decisions of family firms and non-family firms based in Germany 2006–2019. The results confirm our hypothesis that family firms are evaluated on average more favorably when announcing a downsizing decision but elicit less favorable coverage of their upsizing decisions (than non-family firms). Our study highlights that, when being evaluated by media stakeholders, there are not only benefits when a firm is associated with specific (mostly positive) characteristics but that the same characteristics can also be a burden in other situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Fourné, Sebastian P.L. & Kremer, Rico & Zschoche, Miriam, 2025. "Media reactions to family Firms’ downsizing and upsizing decisions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:193:y:2025:i:c:s0148296325001717
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115348
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296325001717
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115348?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    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:eee:jbrese:v:193:y:2025:i:c:s0148296325001717. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    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.