IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v25y2018icp69-75.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Family ownership and risk taking

Author

Listed:
  • Lee, Eun Jung
  • Chae, Joon
  • Lee, Yu Kyung

Abstract

We study the relation between a controlling family's ownership and their company's risk taking behavior. By investigating comprehensive ownership data in Korea where most companies have controlling families, we find that non-linear U-shaped relation exists between family ownership and a firm's risk taking. Our results are robust in various tests considering endogeneity problems and with different proxies. We argue that a family with less ownership takes less risk for pursuing their private benefit, while a family with more ownership aligns their interest with their company's by taking more value enhancing risky projects.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee, Eun Jung & Chae, Joon & Lee, Yu Kyung, 2018. "Family ownership and risk taking," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 69-75.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:25:y:2018:i:c:p:69-75
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2017.10.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S154461231730404X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2017.10.010?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross, 2007. "Is there a diversification discount in financial conglomerates?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 331-367, August.
    2. Yakov Amihud & Baruch Lev, 1981. "Risk Reduction as a Managerial Motive for Conglomerate Mergers," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 605-617, Autumn.
    3. Grossman, Sanford J. & Hart, Oliver D., 1988. "One share-one vote and the market for corporate control," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 175-202, January.
    4. Teodora Paligorova, 2010. "Corporate Risk Taking and Ownership Structure," Staff Working Papers 10-3, Bank of Canada.
    5. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    6. Nguyen, Pascal, 2012. "The impact of foreign investors on the risk-taking of Japanese firms," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 233-248.
    7. Anderson, Ronald C. & Mansi, Sattar A. & Reeb, David M., 2003. "Founding family ownership and the agency cost of debt," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 263-285, May.
    8. Cucculelli, Marco & Peruzzi, Valentina, 2017. "Bank screening technologies and the founder effect: Evidence from European lending relationships," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 229-237.
    9. Pathan, Shams, 2009. "Strong boards, CEO power and bank risk-taking," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1340-1350, July.
    10. Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross, 2009. "Bank governance, regulation and risk taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 259-275, August.
    11. Yannick Bammens & Wim Voordeckers & Anita Gils, 2008. "Boards of directors in family firms: a generational perspective," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 163-180, August.
    12. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    13. Nick Wilson & Mike Wright & Louise Scholes, 2013. "Family Business Survival and the Role of Boards," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 37(6), pages 1369-1389, November.
    14. Mara Faccio & Maria-Teresa Marchica & Roberto Mura, 2011. "Large Shareholder Diversification and Corporate Risk-Taking," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(11), pages 3601-3641.
    15. Saito, Takuji, 2008. "Family firms and firm performance: Evidence from Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 620-646, December.
    16. Low, Angie, 2009. "Managerial risk-taking behavior and equity-based compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 470-490, June.
    17. Kose John & Lubomir Litov & Bernard Yeung, 2008. "Corporate Governance and Risk‐Taking," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1679-1728, August.
    18. Demsetz, Harold & Lehn, Kenneth, 1985. "The Structure of Corporate Ownership: Causes and Consequences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(6), pages 1155-1177, December.
    19. Fırat Bilgel, 2012. "The impact of presumed consent laws and institutions on deceased organ donation," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 13(1), pages 29-38, February.
    20. Roberto Barontini & Lorenzo Caprio, 2006. "The Effect of Family Control on Firm Value and Performance: Evidence from Continental Europe," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 12(5), pages 689-723, November.
    21. Belén Villalonga & Raphael Amit, 2010. "Family Control of Firms and Industries," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 863-904, September.
    22. Stijn Claessens & Simeon Djankov & Joseph P. H. Fan & Larry H. P. Lang, 2002. "Disentangling the Incentive and Entrenchment Effects of Large Shareholdings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2741-2771, December.
    23. Harvey James, 1999. "Owner as Manager, Extended Horizons and the Family Firm," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 41-55.
    24. Plümper, Thomas & Troeger, Vera E., 2007. "Efficient Estimation of Time-Invariant and Rarely Changing Variables in Finite Sample Panel Analyses with Unit Fixed Effects," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(2), pages 124-139, April.
    25. Anderson, Ronald C. & Fraser, Donald R., 2000. "Corporate control, bank risk taking, and the health of the banking industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(8), pages 1383-1398, August.
    26. Coles, Jeffrey L. & Daniel, Naveen D. & Naveen, Lalitha, 2006. "Managerial incentives and risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 431-468, February.
    27. Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung, 2003. "Agency Problems in Large Family Business Groups," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 27(4), pages 367-382, October.
    28. Hyun-Han Shin & Rene M. Stulz, 2000. "Firm Value, Risk, and Growth Opportunities," NBER Working Papers 7808, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Joh, Sung Wook, 2003. "Corporate governance and firm profitability: evidence from Korea before the economic crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 287-322, May.
    30. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:3:p:1301-1327 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Roger, Patrick & Schatt, Alain, 2016. "Idiosyncratic risk, private benefits, and the value of family firms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 235-245.
    32. Claessens, Stijn & Djankov, Simeon & Lang, Larry H. P., 2000. "The separation of ownership and control in East Asian Corporations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 81-112.
    33. Larry H. P. Lang & Mara Faccio & Leslie Young, 2001. "Dividends and Expropriation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 54-78, March.
    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. Gundula Glowka & Andreas Kallmünzer & Anita Zehrer, 2021. "Enterprise risk management in small and medium family enterprises: the role of family involvement and CEO tenure," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 1213-1231, September.
    2. Mismetti, Marco & Sangermano, Andrea & Del Bosco, Barbara & Bergamaschi, Mara, 2024. "Understanding the multiple facets of risk in family firms: A review of the literature and a framework for future research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    3. Tarsalewska, Monika, 2021. "Ownership and cross-border patent sales in M&A transactions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    4. Gundula Glowka & Andreas Kallmünzer & Anita Zehrer, 0. "Enterprise risk management in small and medium family enterprises: the role of family involvement and CEO tenure," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-19.
    5. Maquieira, Carlos P. & Arias, José T. & Espinosa-Méndez, Christian, 2024. "The impact of ESG on the default risk of family firms: International evidence," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(PA).
    6. Wu, Mengyun & Zhang, Xuge & Lu, Jie & Chen, Yanxia, 2024. "De-familiarization governance and family firm investment efficiency," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PB).
    7. Wang, Jimin & Ho, Choy Yeing (Chloe) & Shan, Yuan George, 2024. "Does cybersecurity risk stifle corporate innovation activities?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    8. Orlando Llanos-Contreras & Jose Arias & Carlos Maquieira, 2021. "Risk taking behavior in Chilean listed family firms: a socioemotional wealth approach," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 165-184, March.
    9. Cheng Zhang & Le Luo, 2021. "Board diversity and risk-taking of family firms: Evidence from China," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1569-1590, December.
    10. Luis Otero-González & Luis-Ignacio Rodríguez-Gil & Milagros Vivel-Búa & Aracely Tamayo-Herrera, 2022. "Family Ownership, Corporate Governance and Risk-Taking," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-15, February.

    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. Sabri Boubaker & Pascal Nguyen & Wael Rouatbi, 2016. "Multiple Large Shareholders and Corporate Risk†taking: Evidence from French Family Firms," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 22(4), pages 697-745, September.
    2. Boubaker, Sabri & Nguyen, Pascal & Rouatbi, Wael, 2012. "Large shareholders and firm risk-taking behavior," MPRA Paper 39005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Paligorova, Teodora & Xu, Zhaoxia, 2012. "Complex ownership and capital structure," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 701-716.
    4. Mara Faccio & Maria-Teresa Marchica & Roberto Mura, 2011. "Large Shareholder Diversification and Corporate Risk-Taking," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(11), pages 3601-3641.
    5. Bowo Setiyono & Amine Tarazi, 2014. "Does the presence of institutional investors in family banks affect profitability and risk? Evidence from an emerging market," Working Papers hal-01077118, HAL.
    6. Teodora Paligorova, 2010. "Corporate Risk Taking and Ownership Structure," Staff Working Papers 10-3, Bank of Canada.
    7. Ding, Wenzhi & Levine, Ross & Lin, Chen & Xie, Wensi, 2021. "Corporate immunity to the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 802-830.
    8. Dorra Ellouze & Khadija Mnasri, 2019. "Risk-taking behaviour of family firms: evidence from Tunisia," Post-Print hal-02999642, HAL.
    9. García-Kuhnert, Yamileh & Marchica, Maria-Teresa & Mura, Roberto, 2015. "Shareholder diversification and bank risk-taking," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 602-635.
    10. Nguyen, Pascal, 2011. "Corporate governance and risk-taking: Evidence from Japanese firms," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 278-297, June.
    11. Yung, Kenneth & Jian, Yi, 2017. "Effects of the shareholder base on firm behavior and firm value in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 370-385.
    12. Haw, In-Mu & Ho, Simon S.M. & Hu, Bingbing & Wu, Donghui, 2010. "Concentrated control, institutions, and banking sector: An international study," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 485-497, March.
    13. Poletti-Hughes, Jannine & Williams, Jonathan, 2019. "The effect of family control on value and risk-taking in Mexico: A socioemotional wealth approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 369-381.
    14. Panta, Humnath, 2020. "Does social capital influence corporate risk-taking?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    15. Nam Hoai Tran & Chi Dat Le & David McMillan, 2020. "Ownership concentration, corporate risk-taking and performance: Evidence from Vietnamese listed firms," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 1732640-173, January.
    16. Johan Eklund & Johanna Palmberg & Daniel Wiberg, 2013. "Inherited corporate control and returns on investment," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 419-431, August.
    17. Sabri Boubaker & Riadh Manita & Wael Rouatbi, 2021. "Large shareholders, control contestability and firm productive efficiency," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 296(1), pages 591-614, January.
    18. Zeineb Barka & Taher Hamza, 2020. "The effect of large controlling shareholders on equity prices in France: monitoring or entrenchment?," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 24(3), pages 769-798, September.
    19. Brahmana, Rayenda Khresna & Setiawan, Doddy & Hooy, Chee Wooi, 2014. "Diversification strategy, Ownership Structure, and Firm Value: a study of public‐listed firms in Indonesia," MPRA Paper 64607, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. El Ghoul, Sadok & Guedhami, Omrane & Wang, He & Kwok, Chuck C.Y., 2016. "Family control and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 131-146.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Family firm; Controlling shareholder; Risk taking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G00 - Financial Economics - - General - - - General
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

    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:eee:finlet:v:25:y:2018:i:c:p:69-75. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    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.