Historical ownership of family firms and corporate fraud

We examine the impact of family firms’ historical ownership on corporate fraud. Our results show that restructured family firms from state-owned enterprises are more likely to violate and commit more fraud than entrepreneurial family firms. This finding is robust to the difference-in-difference-in-d...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Huang, Xin (Author) ; Li, Wanrong (Author) ; Cheng, Chen (Author) ; Huang, Hao (Author) ; Liu, Guanchun (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2025
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2025, Volume: 198, Issue: 2, Pages: 293-319
Further subjects:B Corporate fraud
B Restructured family firm
B Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
B Historical ownership
B Entrepreneurial family firm
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Summary:We examine the impact of family firms’ historical ownership on corporate fraud. Our results show that restructured family firms from state-owned enterprises are more likely to violate and commit more fraud than entrepreneurial family firms. This finding is robust to the difference-in-difference-in-differences estimation, an instrument variables regression, fixed effects research design, and propensity score matching (PSM) approach analysis. Mechanism analysis shows that restructured family firms result in lower financial performance, high labor redundancy, inefficient investments, and cash volatility. Therefore, restructured family firms have a stronger incentive to conceal these problems through corporate fraud. Furthermore, the effects of family firms’ historical ownership on corporate fraud are weakened for a more extended period after SOE ownership reform and the restructuring approach adopted by equity takeover.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-024-05817-6