IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/entthe/v44y2020i2p185-210.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of Socioemotional Wealth on Decline-Stemming Strategies of Family Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Giacomo Laffranchini
  • John S Hadjimarcou
  • Si Hyun Kim

Abstract

Calling upon stakeholder theory and the socioemotional wealth (SEW) literature, we investigate how SEW impacts the decline-stemming strategies of family firms. Drawing on a recent conceptualization of SEW, we validate a two-dimensional measurement of the construct using a content analysis technique. Our empirical test on a sample of publicly traded family firms in need of turnaround suggests that the strategic preferences of family firms change depending upon the type of SEW (extended vs. restricted) the owning family values the most. The fine-grained characterization of SEW adopted in this study accounts for within-family-firm differences and thus enables the reconciliation of conflicting findings in the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Giacomo Laffranchini & John S Hadjimarcou & Si Hyun Kim, 2020. "The Impact of Socioemotional Wealth on Decline-Stemming Strategies of Family Firms," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(2), pages 185-210, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:entthe:v:44:y:2020:i:2:p:185-210
    DOI: 10.1177/1042258718784755
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1042258718784755
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1042258718784755?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. Hauck, Jana & Suess-Reyes, Julia & Beck, Susanne & Prügl, Reinhard & Frank, Hermann, 2016. "Measuring socioemotional wealth in family-owned and -managed firms: A validation and short form of the FIBER Scale," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 133-148.
    2. Igor Filatotchev & Steve Toms, 2006. "Corporate Governance and Financial Constraints on Strategic Turnarounds," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 407-433, May.
    3. Jess H. Chua & James J. Chrisman & Erich B. Bergiel, 2009. "An Agency Theoretic Analysis of the Professionalized Family Firm," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 33(2), pages 355-372, March.
    4. Carmelo Cennamo & Pascual Berrone & Cristina Cruz & Luis R. Gomez–Mejia, 2012. "Socioemotional Wealth and Proactive Stakeholder Engagement: Why Family–Controlled Firms Care More about their Stakeholders," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 36(6), pages 1153-1173, November.
    5. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    6. Achim Schmitt & Sebastian Raisch, 2013. "Corporate Turnarounds: The Duality of Retrenchment and Recovery," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(7), pages 1216-1244, November.
    7. Jess H. Chua & James J. Chrisman & Alfredo De Massis, 2015. "A Closer Look at Socioemotional Wealth: Its Flows, Stocks, and Prospects for Moving Forward," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(2), pages 173-182, March.
    8. Garry D. Bruton & David Ahlstrom & Johnny C. C. Wan, 2003. "Turnaround in East Asian firms: evidence from ethnic Overseas Chinese communities," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(6), pages 519-540, June.
    9. Cristina Cruz & Martin Larraza–Kintana & Lucía Garcés–Galdeano & Pascual Berrone, 2014. "Are Family Firms Really More Socially Responsible?," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 38(6), pages 1295-1316, November.
    10. Vanessa M. Strike & Pascual Berrone & Stephen G. Sapp & Lorenzo Congiu, 2015. "A Socioemotional Wealth Approach to CEO Career Horizons in Family Firms," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 555-583, June.
    11. Debicki, Bart J. & Kellermanns, Franz W. & Chrisman, James J. & Pearson, Allison W. & Spencer, Barbara A., 2016. "Development of a socioemotional wealth importance (SEWi) scale for family firm research," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 47-57.
    12. Faccio, Mara & Lang, Larry H. P., 2002. "The ultimate ownership of Western European corporations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 365-395, September.
    13. Danny Miller & Isabelle Le Breton-Miller & Richard H. Lester, 2013. "Family Firm Governance, Strategic Conformity, and Performance: Institutional vs. Strategic Perspectives," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 189-209, February.
    14. Kalle Pajunen, 2006. "Stakeholder Influences in Organizational Survival," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(6), pages 1261-1288, September.
    15. Danny Miller & Isabelle Le Breton–Miller, 2014. "Deconstructing Socioemotional Wealth," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 38(4), pages 713-720, July.
    16. Short, Jeremy C. & Palmer, Timothy B., 2003. "Organizational performance referents: An empirical examination of their content and influences," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 209-224, March.
    17. James M. Vardaman & Maria B. Gondo, 2014. "Socioemotional Wealth Conflict in Family Firms," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 38(6), pages 1317-1322, November.
    18. Jim Lai & Sudi Sudarsanam, 1997. "Corporate Restructuring in Response to Performance Decline: Impact of Ownership, Governance and Lenders," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 1(2), pages 197-233.
    19. Luis Gomez-Mejia & Ionela Neacsu & Geoffrey Martin, 2017. "CEO Risk-Taking and Socioemotional Wealth: The Behavioral Agency Model, Family Control, and CEO Option Wealth," Post-Print hal-02131945, HAL.
    20. Vincent L. Barker & Mark A. Mone, 1994. "Retrenchment: Cause of turnaround or consequence of decline?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 395-405, June.
    21. Luis R. Gomez‐Mejia & Marianna Makri & Martin Larraza Kintana, 2010. "Diversification Decisions in Family‐Controlled Firms," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 223-252, March.
    22. Chi-Nien Chung & Xiaowei Luo, 2008. "Institutional Logics or Agency Costs: The Influence of Corporate Governance Models on Business Group Restructuring in Emerging Economies," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(5), pages 766-784, October.
    23. Chanchai Tangpong & Michael Abebe & Zonghui Li, 2015. "A Temporal Approach to Retrenchment and Successful Turnaround in Declining Firms," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(5), pages 647-677, July.
    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. Liuyang Ren & Xi Zhong & Liangyong Wan, 2022. "Missing Analyst Forecasts and Corporate Fraud: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 171-194, November.
    2. Shisong Jiang & Yijie Min, 2023. "The Ability and Willingness of Family Firms to Bribe: A Socioemotional Wealth Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(1), pages 237-254, April.
    3. Laffranchini, Giacomo & Hadjimarcou, John & Kim, Si Hyun, 2022. "The first turnaround response of family firms in a crisis situation," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1).
    4. Arzubiaga, Unai & Diaz-Moriana, Vanessa & Bauweraerts, Jonathan & Escobar, Octavio, 2021. "Big data in family firms: A socioemotional wealth perspective," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 344-352.
    5. María J. Martínez-Romero & Julio Diéguez-Soto & Pieter Vandekerkhof, 2023. "Enlightening the influence of family TMT involvement on firm growth and degrowth rates," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 13(3), pages 581-610, September.
    6. Riad Shams, S.M. & Vrontis, Demetris & Chaudhuri, Ranjan & Chavan, Gitesh & Czinkota, Michael R., 2020. "Stakeholder engagement for innovation management and entrepreneurial development: A meta-analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 67-86.
    7. Temprano-García, Víctor & Pérez-Fernández, Hector & Rodríguez-Pinto, Javier & Rodríguez-Escudero, Ana Isabel & Barros-Contreras, Ismael, 2023. "How to build a brand-oriented family firm: The impact of socioemotional wealth (SEW) dimensions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    8. Guedes, Maria João & Patel, Pankaj C. & Kowalkowski, Christian & Oghazi, Pejvak, 2022. "Family business, servitization, and performance: Evidence from Portugal," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    9. Cambrea, Domenico Rocco & Ponomareva, Yuliya & Pittino, Daniel & Minichilli, Alessandro, 2022. "Strings attached: Socioemotional wealth mixed gambles in the cash management choices of family firms," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3).
    10. Kettunen, Jukka & Martikainen, Minna & Voulgaris, Georgios, 2021. "Employment policies in private loss firms: Return to profitability and the role of family CEOs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 373-390.
    11. Gerken, Maike & Hülsbeck, Marcel & Ostermann, Thomas & Hack, Andreas, 2022. "Validating the FIBER scale to measure family firm heterogeneity – A replication study with extensions," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).

    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. Laffranchini, Giacomo & Hadjimarcou, John & Kim, Si Hyun, 2022. "The first turnaround response of family firms in a crisis situation," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1).
    2. Davila, Jessenia & Duran, Patricio & Gómez-Mejía, Luis & Sanchez-Bueno, Maria J., 2023. "Socioemotional wealth and family firm performance: A meta-analytic integration," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
    3. Kosmidou, Vasiliki & Holt, Daniel T., 2022. "The relationship between family management and performance: A configurational approach in exploring the role of socioemotional wealth and generational stage," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    4. Moreno-Menéndez, Ana M. & Casillas, José C., 2021. "How do family businesses grow? Differences in growth patterns between family and non-family firms," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3).
    5. Jose L. Barbero & Alicia Ramos & Catherine Chiang, 2017. "Restructuring in dynamic environments: a dynamic capabilities perspective," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(4), pages 593-615.
    6. Cambrea, Domenico Rocco & Ponomareva, Yuliya & Pittino, Daniel & Minichilli, Alessandro, 2022. "Strings attached: Socioemotional wealth mixed gambles in the cash management choices of family firms," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3).
    7. Requejo, Ignacio & Reyes-Reina, Fernando & Sanchez-Bueno, Maria J. & Suárez-González, Isabel, 2018. "European family firms and acquisition propensity: A comprehensive analysis of the legal system’s role," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 44-58.
    8. Melanie Richards, 2023. "When do Non-financial Goals Benefit Stakeholders? Theorizing on Care and Power in Family Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(2), pages 333-351, May.
    9. Jessenia Davila & Luis Gomez-Mejia & Geoff Martin, 2024. "Family Firms and Employee Pension Underfunding: Good Corporate Citizens or Unethical Opportunists?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 192(2), pages 323-339, June.
    10. Xueru Yang & Jun Li & Laura J. Stanley & Franz W. Kellermanns & Xinchun Li, 2020. "How family firm characteristics affect internationalization of Chinese family SMEs," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 417-448, June.
    11. Olivier Meier & Guillaume Schier, 2021. "CSR and Family CEO: The Moderating Role of CEO’s Age," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 595-612, December.
    12. Susana Álvarez‐Díez & J. Samuel Baixauli‐Soler & María Belda‐Ruiz & Gregorio Sánchez‐Marín, 2023. "Variable selection for classification and forecasting of the family firm's socioemotional wealth," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(8), pages 2063-2078, December.
    13. Hanqing “Chevy” Fang & Esra Memili & James J. Chrisman & Linjia Tang, 2021. "Narrow‐Framing and Risk Preferences in Family and Non‐Family Firms," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 201-235, January.
    14. Gómez-Mejía, Luis R. & Herrero, Inés, 2022. "Back to square one: The measurement of Socioemotional Wealth (SEW)," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    15. Lars Schweizer & Andreas Nienhaus, 2017. "Corporate distress and turnaround: integrating the literature and directing future research," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 10(1), pages 3-47, June.
    16. Meier, Olivier & Schier, Guillaume, 2022. "Lone founders, family founders, and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 149-160.
    17. Chua, Jess H. & Chrisman, James J. & De Massis, Alfredo & Wang, Hao, 2018. "Reflections on family firm goals and the assessment of performance," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 107-113.
    18. Mahto, Raj V. & Llanos-Contreras, Orlando & Hebles, Melany, 2022. "Post-disaster recovery for family firms: The role of owner motivations, firm resources, and dynamic capabilities," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 117-129.
    19. Stephen J. Smulowitz & Didier Cossin & Alfredo De Massis & Hongze (Abraham) Lu, 2023. "Wrongdoing in Publicly Listed Family- and Nonfamily-Owned Firms: A Behavioral Perspective," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(4), pages 1233-1264, July.
    20. Hauck, Jana & Suess-Reyes, Julia & Beck, Susanne & Prügl, Reinhard & Frank, Hermann, 2016. "Measuring socioemotional wealth in family-owned and -managed firms: A validation and short form of the FIBER Scale," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 133-148.

    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:sae:entthe:v:44:y:2020:i:2:p:185-210. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.