Las familias gestionan mejor cuando gestionan la empresa que fundaron y no la que adquirieron

Este trabajo trata de explicar por qué no hay resultados concluyentes en el análisis de la calidad de la gestión de las empresas familiares comparadas con empresas cuyo accionista de control no es una familia. Y afirman que los beneficios que pueden derivarse para la gestión del hecho de que el accionista de control sea una familia no se generan en cualquier empresa controlada por una familia sino solo en el caso de empresas familiares controladas por la familia que fundó la empresa. O sea que las familias, cuando adquieren empresas, se comportan igual de mal o peor – como accionistas de control de la empresa adquirida – que cualquier otro accionista de control. El estudio se basa en las cuentas publicadas por empresas italianas cotizadas y controladas por familias.

Stewardship benefits accrue for several reasons, including that founding families often have their names on the business, may perceive their personal satisfaction and public reputation as being tied to the business, and may intend to pass on the business to future family generations… stewardship benefits accrue to those firms that are still controlled by members of the founding family, who are less likely to engage in practices that would result in reporting lower-quality earnings. This causes family ownership to have beneficial effects on accounting practices. In the absence of stewardship benefits, such as in the case of family firms who are controlled by non-founding families, severe agency conflicts arising due to concentrated ownership and control over the board of directors erode the beneficial effects of family ownership, resulting in poor accounting practices… we find that family firms exhibit a lower earnings quality than non-family firms after controlling for the use of devices that separate cash-flow rights and voting rights, size, profitability and other firm-level variables. However… founding-family firms exhibit a higher earnings quality than non-founding-family firms.

Y este otro, en la misma línea, indica que cuando el fundador abandona la compañía, su gobierno corporativo empeora señalando que, cuando el fundador está en el consejo de administración, el salario del consejero delegado está más ligado a los resultados; el salario es más bajo y tiene más posibilidades de ser destituido si los resultados de la compañía son malos

Y este otro, coincide en que “we are able to distinguish between founding families and other controlling families”,

Theories of family control can be classified into two broad explanations, which we refer to as “competitive advantage” and “private benefits of control.” Under the competitive advantage hypothesis, value is maximized for both family and nonfamily shareholders (Bertrand and Schoar, 2006). Under the private benefits of control hypothesis, value is maximized only for the family, who expropriates nonfamily investors… The distinction is particularly relevant for the central research question in this paper, since the reasons for acquiring control may differ from the reasons for retaining control, and the reasons for retaining control, or at least ownership, of companies may differ across founding and nonfounding families. For instance, because founding families are likely to experience considerable emotional attachment to their companies, their commitment to the company may be greater, and their investment horizons longer, than those of nonfounding families—two potential sources of competitive advantage. On the other hand, founding families may be more inclined to appoint their descendants as company CEOs, potentially a form of private benefits appropriation

…. A lower sensitivity of family control to positive shocks would be consistent with a tunneling (i.e., private benefits appropriation) explanation. Conversely, a lower sensitivity to negative shocks would be consistent with a competitive advantage explanation. As Friedman, Johnson, and Mitton (2003) argue, controlling shareholders, such as families, may use their private funds to “prop up” (i.e., provide temporary support) to financially troubled firms, thereby benefiting minority shareholders in those companies. Propping is thus the opposite of tunneling. In other words, families may not always act in their own interest but instead seek to maximize value for the firm as a whole. By doing so when there is an industry downturn, families can make their firms more resilient, thereby putting them in a stronger competitive position relative to nonfamily firms in the industry.

As a second test, we measure, for each industry, the premium or discount at which family firms trade relative to nonfamily firms in the industry, and estimate the average and median “family premium or discount” across all industries in our sample. The finding of an average premium would be consistent with a competitive advantage explanation, whereas a discount would be consistent with a private benefit of control explanation.

When founders and their families are in control, the competitive advantage explanation dominates. However, when nonfounding families and individual blockholders are in control, the private benefits explanation governs. In other words, while all types of controlling families and individuals seek to maximize value for themselves, only founding families are willing and able to maximize value for all shareholders.