This article analyzes a panel of 550 international firms, for the period 2004 to 2010, to compare the role of female directors in family and non-family firms in promoting responsible practices. Many studies have associated the presence of women on the board with a higher degree of socially responsible commitment. However, we found that this is much less so in family firms than in non-family firms. In family firms, corporate social responsibility commitment does not vary significantly with the presence of (...) female directors, as the latter tend to behave in accordance with the family orientation toward CSR. This orientation depends on the stakeholders being addressed, with greater social responsibility shown toward external stakeholders than internal ones. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Based on the literature on stakeholder management and family firm dynamics, this research analyses the relationship between three constructs: the identification of business families with their family firms, FFs’ orientation toward key non-family stakeholders, and the achievement of better economic performance. Data analyses from 374 family and non-family members of 173 Spanish FFs show that a high level of family identification with their firms affects the orientation of FFs toward key non-family stakeholders in setting corporate goals and that this orientation (...) will lead to higher economic performance only when it is built on family identification with the firm. Our results also show that the significance of both relationships changes with the degree of family involvement in the management of the FF. (shrink)

The goal of this research is to analyze the heterogeneity of family firms in the normative attention to their non-family stakeholders. With this aim, we suggest that the psychological process of top family managers in terms of individual affective commitment to their firms is a key variable to explain that heterogeneity. However, we also suggest a moderator effect of the family stakeholder salience in the relationship between the managers' affective commitment to the firm and the establishment of firm goals toward (...) non-family stakeholders. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis on data obtained from 207 family executives show a significant positive influence of managers' affective commitment on the establishment of goals related both to internal and external non-family stakeholders. In addition, we can observe a negative moderator effect of the family utilitarian power—as an indicator of the family stakeholder salience—on the relationship between the family managers' affective commitment and the goals related to non-family employees. (shrink)

Responsible family ownership is a combination of the family’s commitment to the family-firm’s stakeholders in the long term and the explicit behaviour of the family members associated with the firm. However, families are not individuals but rather a system of relationships among family members. In such a context, misunderstandings in communication, anachronistic mentalities and different value systems can block the intergenerational transmission of RFO. Consequently, the responsibility of the family towards the FF’s stakeholders may be damaged and the firm’s socially (...) responsible behaviour hindered. This paper aims to identify how RFO is transferred across generations and to ascertain the role that family social capital plays in preserving the transmission of RFO from generation to generation. Our research is based on three in-depth case studies of Mexican family-owned small- and medium-sized enterprises. First, the paper identifies and contrasts a set of FSC-specific factors and problems which play a relevant role in the transmission of RFO while recognizing the influence of the mutually reinforcing dynamics of FSC dimensions. Secondly, the family’s honourableness :751–767, 2013) is identified as a key driver for sustaining the transmission of RFO. Finally, the paper identifies RFO institutionalization required to face the intrinsic problems of transmitting RFO in growing families. (shrink)