Yu Xiaodong, Li Huan, Cheng Xirong, Sun Shize
Business School, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China.
School of Economics, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2022 Nov 15;13:1029380. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1029380. eCollection 2022.
It has been generally believed that the major shareholders of family firms are more willing to implement egoistic behaviors aimed at benefiting the family. This study analyses whether the major shareholder of the family firm whose name contains "Confucian symbols" such as benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and kindness will reduce family self-interested behaviors as his name indicates. Using a sample consisting of all 425 family firms listed on Small and Medium Enterprise Board and Growth Enterprise Board, the result shows that the major shareholder whose name contains Confucian symbols is less likely to misappropriate corporate assets and less likely to make "family-first" personnel arrangements, meanwhile is more open to external supervision. Further mechanism testing reveals that the major shareholder whose name contains Confucian symbols also tends to choose corporate culture that reflects Confucianism. The study confirms that the name of the major shareholder is one of the factors which can affect the operation of the family business, demonstrates that different family firms have different attitudes towards family self-interest, and promotes the extant research from the "differences between family and non-family firms" level further to the "differences among family firms running by different families" level.
人们普遍认为，家族企业的大股东更愿意实施旨在使家族受益的利己行为。本研究分析了家族企业中姓名包含“仁、义、忠、善”等儒家符号的大股东是否会如其姓名所示减少家族利己行为。以中小企业板和创业板上市的425家家族企业为样本，结果表明，姓名包含儒家符号的大股东挪用公司资产的可能性较小，做出“家族优先”人事安排的可能性较小，同时对外部监督更开放。进一步的机制检验表明，姓名包含儒家符号的大股东也倾向于选择体现儒家思想的企业文化。该研究证实大股东的姓名是影响家族企业经营的因素之一，表明不同家族企业对家族私利有不同态度，并将现有研究从“家族企业与非家族企业的差异”层面进一步推进到“不同家族经营的家族企业之间的差异”层面。
