Family Firms and Employee Pension Underfunding: Good Corporate Citizens or Unethical Opportunists?

This study draws upon the behavioral agency model and the concept of socioemotional wealth to investigate how family firms’ employee pension underfunding decisions differ from those of non-family firms. We explore how these differences are influenced by financial distress, generational stage, and wh...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Davila, Jessenia (Author) ; Gomez-Mejia, Luis (Author) ; Martin, Geoff (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer 2024
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2024, Volume: 192, Issue: 2, Pages: 323-339
Further subjects:B Ethics
B Socioemotional wealth
B family firm
B BAM
B Pension underfunding
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:This study draws upon the behavioral agency model and the concept of socioemotional wealth to investigate how family firms’ employee pension underfunding decisions differ from those of non-family firms. We explore how these differences are influenced by financial distress, generational stage, and whether the firm is eponymous. We test our hypotheses using data from 452 US firms over an eleven-year period. Our results suggest that family firms are less likely to underfund pensions, but this effect is attenuated in later generational ownership stages and in non-eponymous firms.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-023-05533-7