IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/stratm/v42y2021i1p114-143.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The corporate parenting advantage, revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Emilie R. Feldman

Abstract

Research Summary This paper investigates the corporate parenting advantage, the extent to which corporate parents improve the performance of their subsidiaries. Despite the importance of this concept for corporate strategy, researchers have yet to quantify it empirically. I measure the corporate parenting advantage by comparing the performance of utilities that were legally classified into one of two types of holding companies: regulated holding companies, which faced limits on their ability to parent, and exempt holding companies, which did not. I find that observationally similar utilities that were owned by exempt holding companies outperform utilities that were owned by regulated holding companies, and that this performance differential attenuates once the legal restrictions on parenting were lifted. These results provide the first large‐scale empirical evidence of the corporate parenting advantage. Managerial Summary By how much do corporate parents improve the performance of their subsidiaries? Despite the importance of this question of the “corporate parenting advantage,” it does not yet have a clear answer. In this paper, I measure the corporate parenting advantage by comparing the performance of utilities that were legally grouped into one of two types of holding companies: regulated holding companies, which faced limits on their ability to parent, and exempt holding companies, which did not. I find that comparable utilities that were owned by regulated holding companies have lower return on assets than utilities that were owned by exempt holding companies, and that this performance difference disappears once the legal restrictions on parenting were lifted. These results provide evidence of the corporate parenting advantage.

Suggested Citation

  • Emilie R. Feldman, 2021. "The corporate parenting advantage, revisited," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(1), pages 114-143, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:stratm:v:42:y:2021:i:1:p:114-143
    DOI: 10.1002/smj.3218
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3218
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/smj.3218?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hitt, Michael A. & King, David & Krishnan, Hema & Makri, Marianna & Schijven, Mario & Shimizu, Katsuhiko & Zhu, Hong, 2009. "Mergers and acquisitions: Overcoming pitfalls, building synergy, and creating value," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 523-529, November.
    2. Stein, Jeremy C, 1997. "Internal Capital Markets and the Competition for Corporate Resources," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 111-133, March.
    3. Gareth R. Jones & Charles W. L. Hill, 1988. "Transaction cost analysis of strategy‐structure choice," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 159-172, March.
    4. Evan Rawley, 2010. "Diversification, coordination costs, and organizational rigidity: evidence from microdata," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(8), pages 873-891, August.
    5. Irene M. Duhaime & John H. Grant, 1984. "Factors influencing divestment decision‐making: Evidence from a field study," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(4), pages 301-318, October.
    6. Ron Adner & Constance E. Helfat, 2003. "Corporate effects and dynamic managerial capabilities," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(10), pages 1011-1025, October.
    7. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:2:p:479-506 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    9. Charles W. L. Hill & Michael A. Hitt & Robert E. Hoskisson, 1992. "Cooperative Versus Competitive Structures in Related and Unrelated Diversified Firms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(4), pages 501-521, November.
    10. Tina C. Ambos & Julian Birkinshaw, 2010. "Headquarters’ Attention and Its Effect on Subsidiary Performance," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 449-469, August.
    11. Tomi Laamanen & Thomas Keil, 2008. "Performance of serial acquirers: toward an acquisition program perspective," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 663-672, June.
    12. David S. Scharfstein & Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "The Dark Side of Internal Capital Markets: Divisional Rent‐Seeking and Inefficient Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(6), pages 2537-2564, December.
    13. Sayan Chatterjee & Birger Wernerfelt, 1991. "The link between resources and type of diversification: Theory and evidence," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 33-48, January.
    14. Naveen Khanna & Sheri Tice, 2001. "The Bright Side of Internal Capital Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1489-1528, August.
    15. Schmalensee, Richard, 1985. "Do Markets Differ Much?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 341-351, June.
    16. C. K. Prahalad & Richard A. Bettis, 1986. "The dominant logic: A new linkage between diversity and performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(6), pages 485-501, November.
    17. Daniel A. Levinthal & Brian Wu, 2010. "Opportunity costs and non‐scale free capabilities: profit maximization, corporate scope, and profit margins," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(7), pages 780-801, July.
    18. Schipper, Katherine & Smith, Abbie, 1983. "Effects of recontracting on shareholder wealth : The case of voluntary spin-offs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 437-467, December.
    19. Richard P. Rumelt, 1982. "Diversification strategy and profitability," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(4), pages 359-369, October.
    20. ANITA M. McGAHAN & MICHAEL E. PORTER, 1997. "How Much Does Industry Matter, Really?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(S1), pages 15-30, July.
    21. R. Richard Geddes, 1996. "Time to Repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 16(1), pages 62-63, Spring/Su.
    22. Wernerfelt, Birger & Montgomery, Cynthia A, 1988. "Tobin's q and the Importance of Focus in Firm Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 246-250, March.
    23. Edward H. Bowman & Constance E. Helfat, 2001. "Does corporate strategy matter?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 1-23, January.
    24. Abhirup Chakrabarti & Will Mitchell, 2013. "The Persistent Effect of Geographic Distance in Acquisition Target Selection," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(6), pages 1805-1826, December.
    25. Laura Poppo, 2003. "The Visible Hands of Hierarchy within the M‐Form: An Empirical Test of Corporate Parenting of Internal Product Exchanges," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 403-430, March.
    26. David Collis & David Young & Michael Goold, 2007. "The size, structure, and performance of corporate headquarters," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 383-405, April.
    27. Foss, Nicolai J, 1997. "On the Rationales of Corporate Headquarters," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 6(2), pages 313-338, March.
    28. Rui J. P. de Figueiredo & Emilie R. Feldman & Evan Rawley, 2019. "The costs of refocusing: Evidence from hedge fund closures during the financial crisis," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(8), pages 1268-1290, August.
    29. Anja Trichterborn & Dodo Zu Knyphausen-Aufseß & Lars Schweizer, 2016. "How to improve acquisition performance: The role of a dedicated M&A function, M&A learning process, and M&A capability," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 763-773, April.
    30. Richard P. Rumelt, 1991. "How much does industry matter?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(3), pages 167-185, March.
    31. Claudine Gartenberg, 2014. "Do Parents Matter? Effects of Lender Affiliation Through the Mortgage Boom and Bust," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(11), pages 2776-2793, November.
    32. Brian S. Silverman, 1999. "Technological Resources and the Direction of Corporate Diversification: Toward an Integration of the Resource-Based View and Transaction Cost Economics," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(8), pages 1109-1124, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chang Liu & Dan Li & Lorraine Eden & Marjorie A. Lyles, 2022. "Danger from a distance: Executives' social distance and multinationals' responses to host‐country terrorist attacks," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(11), pages 2414-2443, November.
    2. Ambos, Tina C. & Hughes, Mathew (Mat) & Niemand, Thomas & Kraus, Sascha, 2023. "Subsidiary managers' initiative pursuit: A behavioral agency model," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(3).
    3. McGrath, Patia J. & O’Neill, Hugh M., 2023. "Acquisitions of divested business units: A typology and strategies for success," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 66(5), pages 691-706.
    4. Zheng, Li & Ma, Pengcheng & Hong, Jacky Fok Loi, 2022. "Internal embeddedness of business group affiliates and innovation performance: Evidence from China," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    5. Teresa A. Dickler & Timothy B. Folta & Marco S. Giarratana & Juan Santaló, 2022. "The value of flexibility in multi‐business firms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(12), pages 2602-2628, December.
    6. Dongil Daniel Keum, 2023. "Managerial political power and the reallocation of resources in the internal capital market," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 369-414, February.
    7. Rumeng Cui & Zhong Ma & Longfeng Wang, 2022. "Allocation of Decision Rights and CSR Disclosure: Evidence from Listed Business Groups in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-20, March.

    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. Emilie R. Feldman & Claudine Gartenberg & Julie Wulf, 2018. "Pay inequality and corporate divestitures," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(11), pages 2829-2858, November.
    2. Emilie R. Feldman & Stuart C. Gilson & Belén Villalonga, 2014. "Do analysts add value when they most can? Evidence from corporate spin-offs," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(10), pages 1446-1463, October.
    3. Mo Chen & Aseem Kaul & Brian Wu, 2019. "Adaptation across multiple landscapes: Relatedness, complexity, and the long run effects of coordination in diversified firms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(11), pages 1791-1821, November.
    4. Marinelli, Federico, 2008. "Persistence of outstanding performance and shareholder value among diversified firms: The impact of past performance, efficient internal capital market, and relatedness of business segments," IESE Research Papers D/758, IESE Business School.
    5. Dmitry Sharapov & Paul Kattuman & Diego Rodriguez & F. Javier Velazquez, 2021. "Using the SHAPLEY value approach to variance decomposition in strategy research: Diversification, internationalization, and corporate group effects on affiliate profitability," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 608-623, March.
    6. M. V. Shyam Kumar, 2013. "The Costs of Related Diversification: The Impact of the Core Business on the Productivity of Related Segments," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(6), pages 1827-1846, December.
    7. Chen, Yi-Min, 2010. "The continuing debate on firm performance: A multilevel approach to the IT sectors of Taiwan and South Korea," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 471-478, May.
    8. Philipp Meyer‐Doyle & Sunkee Lee & Constance E. Helfat, 2019. "Disentangling the microfoundations of acquisition behavior and performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(11), pages 1733-1756, November.
    9. Guangrui Guo, 2017. "Demystifying variance in performance: A longitudinal multilevel perspective," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(6), pages 1327-1342, June.
    10. Kunisch, Sven & Menz, Markus & Birkinshaw, Julian, 2019. "Spatially dispersed corporate headquarters: A historical analysis of their prevalence, antecedents, and consequences," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 148-161.
    11. Yi-Min Chen, 2008. "How Much Does Country Matter?," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 31(4), pages 404-435, October.
    12. Raffaele Morandi Stagni & Juan Santaló & Marco S. Giarratana, 2020. "Product‐market competition and resource redeployment in multi‐business firms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(10), pages 1799-1836, October.
    13. Sara Parker‐Lue & Marvin Lieberman, 2020. "The impact of diversification on task performance: Evidence from kidney transplant centers," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(7), pages 1169-1190, July.
    14. Vojislav Maksimovic & Gordon Phillips, 2002. "Do Conglomerate Firms Allocate Resources Inefficiently Across Industries? Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(2), pages 721-767, April.
    15. Fabio R. Chaddad & Mario P. Mondelli, 2013. "Sources of Firm Performance Differences in the US Food Economy," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(2), pages 382-404, June.
    16. Mathias Arrfelt & Robert M. Wiseman & Gerry McNamara & G. Tomas M. Hult, 2015. "Examining a key corporate role: The influence of capital allocation competency on business unit performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(7), pages 1017-1034, July.
    17. Ming zhu Wang, 2023. "Changes in industry and corporate effects in the United States, 1978–2019," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 477-490, February.
    18. Sarada Devi Gadepalli & Arindam Mondal, 2018. "Sources of Business Unit Performance Heterogeneity in India: The Influence of Ownership," Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, , vol. 43(4), pages 207-221, December.
    19. Ljubownikow, Grigorij & Ang, Siah Hwee, 2020. "Competition, diversification and performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 81-94.
    20. Sven Kunisch & Markus Menz & David Collis, 2020. "Corporate headquarters in the twenty-first century: an organization design perspective," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 9(1), pages 1-32, December.

    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:bla:stratm:v:42:y:2021:i:1:p:114-143. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/0143-2095 .

    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.