Journal ArticleDOI
Stewardship or Agency? A Social Embeddedness Reconciliation of Conduct and Performance in Public Family Businesses
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
This paper argues that both these views have application but under different circumstances, determined in part by the degree to which the firm and its executive actors are embedded within the family and thus identify with its interests.Abstract:
Two contradictory perspectives of family business conduct and performance are prominent in the literature. The stewardship perspective argues that family business owners and managers will act as farsighted stewards of their companies, investing generously in the business to enhance value for all stakeholders. By contrast, the agency and behavioral agency perspectives maintain that major family owners, in catering to family self-interest, will underinvest in the firm, avoid risk, and extract resources. This paper argues that both these views have application but under different circumstances, determined in part by the degree to which the firm and its executive actors are embedded within the family and thus identify with its interests. Stewardship behavior will be less common, and agency behavior will be more common the greater the number of family directors, officers, generations, and votes, and the more executives are susceptible to family influence. These findings are supported among Fortune 1000 firms, as well as among the subsample of those firms that are family businesses.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community
TL;DR: As an example of how the current "war on terrorism" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says "permanently marked" the generation that lived through it and had a "terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century."
The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)
Paul DiMaggio,Walter W. Powell +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.
Journal ArticleDOI
Socioemotional Wealth in Family Firms Theoretical Dimensions, Assessment Approaches, and Agenda for Future Research
TL;DR: In this article, the authors make the case for the socioemotional wealth (SEW) approach as the potential dominant paradigm in the family business field and argue that SEW is the most important differentiator of the family firm as a unique entity and helps explain why family firms behave distinctively.
References
More filters
Journal Article
Family Business: Human Dilemmas in the Family Firm
TL;DR: The distinction between the European selfconscious avant garde and the North American folklorist is made in this article, where both sides might agree that they are Studying Organizational Symbolism, but neither actually agree what this involves or how we should achieve it.
Journal ArticleDOI
Adherence to plans, risk taking, and environment as predictors of firm growth
Jeffrey G. Covin,Denis P. Slevin +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, a study of the conditions under which adherence to strategic plans promotes firm sales growth rate is described, and the relationship between adherence to plans and sales growth is hypothesized to be influenced by the joint effects of environmental factors and top management's risk taking propensity.
Book
Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Great Family Businesses
TL;DR: In "Dynasties", award-winning author David Landes casts his eye over some of the most powerful family businesses in Europe, Japan and America and provides thrilling histories of the characters who have made their mark on the world and passed on a legacy - sometimes benign and sometimes not - to their descendants.
Journal ArticleDOI
Family ownership and business survival: Kirkcaldy, 1870-1970
TL;DR: Kirkcaldy as mentioned in this paper, 1870-1970, discusses the family ownership and business survival in the early 1970s. Business History: Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 1-32.
Related Papers (5)
Founding-Family Ownership and Firm Performance: Evidence from the S&P 500
Ronald C. Anderson,David M. Reeb +1 more