In my study, I examine the relationship between founding family ownership and firm performance. Using publicly listed companies in Indonesia, I observe families are much more prevalent than in the US; in my sample, families are present in over 60% of Indonesian listed companies and families own an average outstanding equity of 50.4%. Contrary to previous literatures, I present new evidence to show founding family ownership and control is a more efficient form of ownership structure only when the family is a majority-shareholder in the company. Additional investigations shows that founding family ownership has a U-shaped quadratic relationship with firm performance, indicating that an increase in family ownership is initially associated with worsening firm performances, but is then associated with improving firm performances after passing a certain level of equity ownership.

Introduction:The current economic crisis started in 2007 warned many business pro-fessions how important it is to react to the crisis quickly and properly. Many studies have been conducted on family businesses about their special resources environment, succession, governance etc. There are barely literature has ever mentioned about how family business cope with economic crisis. Thus, the author conducted such a study on this topic to explore more in family business study.Purpose:To enhance the understanding of economic crisis management in fam-ily business, this thesis will analyze the actions of family firms during the economic crisis. This research aims to investigate how unique fam-ily firm resources influence the way they cope with the economic crisis.Method:A qualitative research has been conducted in this study. In-depth inter-views were conducted in two family business firms with the business owners and other high level position staff who have clear picture about the management during economic crisis. Tele-interview was adopted due to the distance limit.Conclusions:During economic crisis, family firms do not use layoff as a major means to cost down. They keep relative stable relationship with their employ-ees as well as other business partners. They seek financial and other help from the family members or in the family network rather than other external resources such as bank etc. The governance also con-cerns more on employee benefits.

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the differences between family and non-family businesses that are listed on the stock exchange, more specifically which factors that is being used in the valuation process and why family businesses as a rule seem to be undervalued. We also look at if family ownership is a factor in this process. By conducting interviews with analysts and journalists working with valuation we hope to be able to not only find out what factors differ but also why family busi-nesses are undervalued. Our conclusion is that while the two forms of ownership has several negative factors that differ between them that are more common among family businesses, such as conservative dividend policy, this is not connected to the family business as a form but is rather an individual factor differing from company to company. Family ownership as such was however not in any way a factor in the valuation since the valuations instead looks at the individual company and does not generalize.

This thesis studies seven strategic decisions made in the family-owned forestry company Robertsfors AB, in Northern Sweden. During the present century Ro­bertsfors AB has developed from a patriarchally concern controlled into a capi­talistic industrial company. This also meant a radical change in the decision­making process. Two factors were decisive in this process: the managing direc­tor's values, and altered power relationships both within the company and exter­nally in relation to e g state and municipal authorities and labour market organi­zations. The patriarchal Seth M Kempe, managing director 1897-1927, placed greater value on the company's independence than on profitability, and he personally, after discussions with the production manager, made the strategic decisions to build a sulphite mill in 1902 and not to build a sulphate mill in 1918. He also had no confidence in outside experts. Maximum profits on paid up capital, quick decisions and delegation of re­sponsibility were the marks of the years 1928-1947, when Seth M Kempe's son Erik was managing director. The strategic decision to close down the sawmill in 1935 was made by the company board, while he himself made the decisions early in the 1940's to produce sulphite alcohol and to establish an impregnation works, and finally to close down the sulphite mill in 1948. Responsibility for the community and the company's work force increased in importance during the years 1948-1968, when Erik's brother Ragnar was man­aging director. Now the board once again had real power. Decision-making was based on negotiation and compromise between management, the board, union organizations and state authorities — which is reflected in the strategic decision of 1967 to rebuild the foundry. / digitalisering@umu

Firms must access capital to remain in business.  Small firms have greater difficulty accessing financial resources than have large firms because of their limited access to capital markets.  These difficulties are exacerbated by information asymmetries between a small firm’ s management and capital providers.  It has been theorized that many information asymmetries can be reduced through networks that link those in need of capital with those who can supply it. This research is about these relationships and their impact on the firms’ capital structure. This research has been limited to a sub-set of small firms, family firms.  I have collected data through a survey using a systematic sampling procedure. Both self-administered questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were utilized. The data analysis was based on the responses from two-hundred-and-fifty-six small manufacturing firms in Thailand. Seemingly unrelated regression (SUR), logistic regression, multiple discriminant analysis and Mann-Whitney U test were employed in the analysis. The hypothesis that firms apply a pecking order in their capital raising was confirmed although the generally accepted rationale based on poor access (and information asymmetries) was rejected.  Instead, at least for family firms, the desire to maintain family control had a significant impact on the use of retained earnings and owner’s savings. My results also indicated that while the depth of relationships had a positive effect on direct funding from family and friends, networks did not facilitate capital access from external providers of funds. Instead direct communications between owner-managers and their capital providers (particularly bank officials) mattered. A comparative analysisof small manufacturing firms in general and small family manufacturing firms revealed that there were differences between them in regard to their financial preferences, suggesting that family firms should be considered separately in small firm research. Further, the results of this research raise some questions about the appropriateness of applying theories directly from one research context to another without due consideration for  the impact of cultural influences. Through this research I have added evidence to the dialogue about small firms from a non-English speaking country by investigating the impact of networks on capital structure and the rationale behind family firm capital structure decisions.

This paper presents the study of family firm demographic characteristics on the base of 415 Swedish family companies. The main purpose is to investigate if there is a connection between the location of a family company and its size, age and industrial sector. The results of the study showed some distinctions of the family firms located in rural areas. They are usually of smaller size compare to those from more urban areas. The prevailing types of activities of the rural family companies are manufacturing and wholesale whereas the urban family firms dominate in the service sector, especially in the branches demanding high level of education and technology. There was also an attempt made to detect the relationship between the location and the age but there was not found any prove for this relation to exist. Also there was found evidence that most of the Swedish family companies are situated in less urban and rural areas which is in line with the results of previous studies in this area.

<p>The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the differences between family and non-family businesses that are listed on the stock exchange, more specifically which factors that is being used in the valuation process and why family businesses as a rule seem to be undervalued. We also look at if family ownership is a factor in this process.</p><p>By conducting interviews with analysts and journalists working with valuation we hope to be able to not only find out what factors differ but also why family busi-nesses are undervalued.</p><p>Our conclusion is that while the two forms of ownership has several negative factors that differ between them that are more common among family businesses, such as conservative dividend policy, this is not connected to the family business as a form but is rather an individual factor differing from company to company. Family ownership as such was however not in any way a factor in the valuation since the valuations instead looks at the individual company and does not generalize.</p>

SEW refers to the stock of affect-related values that an owning family derives from its family business. As a promising theoretical concept, the SEW has been used widely to explain the diverse strategic choices of family firms compared to non-family firms. However, little study has been done to measure SEW directly and to measure the effect of SEW on family firms’ strategic choices.     Within the context of family-owned Hidden Champions, this thesis study replicates the five-dimension model proposed by Berrone et al. in an empirical study to verify the psychometric measurement on the degree of SEW. Furthermore, internationalization has been chosen as an example to demonstrate the effects of SEW on family firms’ strategic choices and outcomes.   This study has verified the reliability and validity of the SEW scale and SEW’s five subscales constructed. Furthermore, the measurement on SEW and its five dimensions has been applied to examine the effects of SEW and its five dimensions on the internationalization of family firms. The findings reveal that SEW has a negative effect on the internationalization of family firms, which is mainly due to the negative effect of Family Control and Influence.

This study investigates the relation between family firms and acquiring firm performance for our sample of Taiwanese mergers and acquisitions between 1999 and 2013. We find that cumulative abnormal returns of family acquirers on average outperform those of nonfamily acquirers by 2.17% three days around the announcement. Family acquirers obtain greater abnormal returns even after controlling for both firm characteristics such as firm size, book to market, prior return, public target and deal characteristics such as year dummy and mode of payment. Furthermore, we explore the potential impact of the deviation between voting rights and cash flow rights on family acquiring performance. In the sample of Taiwanese mergers and acquisitions, the deviation is not the significant factor to cause a negative influence. As a result, family acquirers with the advantage of eliminating agency problems may generate more benefits than nonfamily acquirers.

The topic of this diploma thesis is aimed at the analysis of corporate social responsibility in the context of the Prize for social responsibility "We do business responsibly".