IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/ejlwec/v38y2014i2p211-225.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A contractual perspective on succession in family firms: a stakeholder view

Author

Listed:
  • Per-Olof Bjuggren
  • Lars-Göran Sund

Abstract

This paper analyses succession in family firms from a contractual perspective. A firm is regarded as a nexus of contractual relations with owners, employees, suppliers of goods and services and customers. These contractual parties are in differing degrees tied to the firm through asset specificities. Succession can affect the value of such assets. In this sense they become stakeholders with vested interests in the succession process. The theoretical discussion of affected stakeholders is backed up by a survey study of 143 Swedish family-owned businesses that have been subject to succession. The results show that the opinions of close shareholders such as family members and incumbent mangers as well as those of other stakeholders such as suppliers and customers are important. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Per-Olof Bjuggren & Lars-Göran Sund, 2014. "A contractual perspective on succession in family firms: a stakeholder view," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 211-225, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:38:y:2014:i:2:p:211-225
    DOI: 10.1007/s10657-012-9331-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10657-012-9331-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10657-012-9331-6?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. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:3:p:567-91 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    3. Oliver E. Williamson, 2000. "The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 595-613, September.
    4. Bjuggren, Per-Olof & Sund, Lars-Goran, 2002. "A Transaction Cost Rationale for Transition of the Firm within the Family," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 123-133, September.
    5. Per-Olof Bjuggren & Dennis C. Mueller (ed.), 2009. "The Modern Firm, Corporate Governance and Investment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13362.
    6. Bjuggren, Per-Olof, 1995. "A transaction cost perspective on financial distress and capital structure," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 395-404, December.
    7. Lars-Göran Sund & Per-Olof Bjuggren, 2007. "Family-owned, limited close corporations and protection of ownership," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 273-283, June.
    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. Rodriguez Serna, Lil & Nakandala, Dilupa & Bowyer, Dorothea, 2022. "Stakeholder identification and prioritization: The attribute of dependency," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 444-455.
    2. Marco Cucculelli & Valentina Peruzzi, 2020. "Post-crisis firm survival, business model changes, and learning: evidence from the Italian manufacturing industry," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 459-474, February.
    3. Sund, Lars-Göran & Melin, Leif & Haag, Kajsa, 2015. "Intergenerational ownership succession," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 166-177.

    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. Bjuggren, Per-Olof & Sund, Lars-Göran, 2011. "A Contractual Perspective on Succession in Family Firms," Ratio Working Papers 181, The Ratio Institute.
    2. Williamson, Oliver E., 2010. "Transaction Cost Economics: The Natural Progression," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 215-226.
    3. Bjuggren, Per-Olof & Elmoznino Laufer, Michel, 2015. "Startups, Financing and Geography– Findings from a survey," Ratio Working Papers 255, The Ratio Institute.
    4. Evans, Lewis & Meade, Richard, 2005. "The Role and Significance of Cooperatives in New Zealand Agriculture, A Comparative Institutional Analysis," Working Paper Series 3847, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    5. 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.
    6. Pursey Heugens & J. Oosterhout & Muel Kaptein, 2006. "Foundations and Applications for Contractualist Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 211-228, October.
    7. Yochanan Shachmurove, 2012. "Failing Institutions Are at the Core of the U.S. Financial Crisis," PIER Working Paper Archive 12-040, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    8. Sacchetti, Silvia & Tortia, Ermanno, 2012. "The internal and external governance of cooperatives: the effective membership and consistency of value," AICCON Working Papers 111-2012, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    9. Min Huang & Mengyao Li & Cailing Huang, 2024. "Confucianism culture and green innovation: Evidence from Chinese industrial firms," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(5), pages 4862-4877, September.
    10. Boudreaux, Christopher, 2019. "Do private enterprises outperform state enterprises in an emerging market? The importance of institutional context in entrepreneurship," MPRA Paper 93039, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Matyukha, Andriy, 2017. "Business groups in agriculture impact of ownership structures on performance: The case of Russia's agroholdings," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies 254051, Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    12. Antonczyk, Ron Christian & Salzmann, Astrid Juliane, 2014. "Overconfidence and optimism: The effect of national culture on capital structure," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 132-151.
    13. Dak-Adzaklo, Cephas Simon Peter & Wong, Raymond M.K., 2024. "Corporate governance reforms, societal trust, and corporate financial policies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    14. Johan Eklund, 2010. "Q-theory of investment and earnings retentions—evidence from Scandinavia," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 793-813, December.
    15. Cline, Brandon N. & Williamson, Claudia R. & Xiong, Haoyang, 2021. "Culture and the regulation of insider trading across countries," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    16. Xie, En & Reddy, K.S. & Liang, Jie, 2017. "Country-specific determinants of cross-border mergers and acquisitions: A comprehensive review and future research directions," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 127-183.
    17. Liu, Xianda & Hou, Wenxuan & Main, Brian G.M., 2022. "Anti-market sentiment and corporate social responsibility: Evidence from anti-Jewish pogroms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    18. Dietrich, Diemo & Jindra, Björn, 2010. "Corporate governance in the multinational enterprise: A financial contracting perspective," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 446-456, October.
    19. Franco Rubino & Francesco Napoli, 2020. "What Impact Does Corporate Governance Have on Corporate Environmental Performances? An Empirical Study of Italian Listed Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-21, July.
    20. Nguyen, Thi Tuyet Mai, 2017. "An examination of independent directors in Vietnam," OSF Preprints ay6dv, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Succession; Family firms; Mutual dependence; Asset specificity; Nexus of contracts; Close and non-close stakeholders; G32; K12; K22; L2;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • K12 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Contract Law
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior

    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:kap:ejlwec:v:38:y:2014:i:2:p:211-225. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.