“手足亲情”能否提升企业经营效率?——来自A股上市手足型家族企业的证据

Can Sibling Relationship Improve Firms’ Operating Efficiency? Evidence from A-Share Listed Sibling-Type Family Firms

手足关系是人生经历时间最长的人际关系之一,在我国传统文化中备受珍视和推崇。在传统家庭本位文化背景下,以手足关系为关键情感基础维系的手足型家族企业广泛存在于我国经济体系中,并展现出独特的公司治理特征。本文以2014—2016年A股家族企业为样本,探究手足合营对企业经营效率的影响,研究发现:(1)手足型家族企业具有较高的经营效率,表现在较低的管理费用率、经营费用率和较高的总资产周转率,而且,这一结论在工具变量两阶段回归模型中依然稳健;(2)传统文化作为调节因素,能够加强手足亲情对企业经营效率的提升效果;(3)通过对手足情感特点与企业特征的进一步探讨,结果发现:当企业高管中亲手足或者创一代手足人数比例较大、手足实质涉入程度以及企业规模较小或者股权制衡度较高时,手足亲情对于企业经营效率提升的作用较为明显。本文丰富了现有家族企业治理的研究成果,同时也对我国手足型家族企业治理结构的完善及经营效率的提升提供了经验支持。

As one of the longest interpersonal relationships in one s lifetime,sibling relationship is extraordinarily valued and worshiped in China s traditional culture.Under the traditional family-centered cultural background,the sibling-type family firms,which are maintained under the emotional foundation built upon sibling relationship,are widely existed in China s economic system,showing unique corporate governance characteristics.Existing researches have pointed out that owing to the common biological inheritance or the early-life experience,sibling relationship has formed similar values imperceptibly,and can be manifested as individuals helping and supporting each other at different life stages,making it easier for them to cultivate deeper trust and engage in better mutual collaboration.This paves the way for sibling relationship to become more important in the interpersonal networks.Such kind of psychological identification originated from the feelings of kinship,which makes it easier to cultivate the inherent trust and to strengthen and guarantee stable cooperation.In the operating and development process of the enterprise,the advantages of the sibling relationship are shown as follows:when siblings involve in the enterprise,it is easier for them to form cooperation and mutual benefits,which effectively alleviates information asymmetry in the enterprise,reduces the agency cost,and increases the operating efficiency.However,according to some other researches on sociology and anthropology,jealousy,conflict,and competition also exist among the siblings,which not only reduces their willingness to help each other but also intensifies their aggressive behaviors.Especially under the effect of their respective marriage,family,and residential distances,the mutual contact among the siblings transforms into a kind of voluntary choice,which may loosen emotional cohesion.What s worse,limited by the feelings of kinship,the owner of the enterprise can hardly adopt any kind of punitive measures to their siblings,which in turn aggravates the agency problems of the enterprise.Therefore,sibling relations might impede the development of the enterprise.Generally speaking,whether the sibling-type business pattern is beneficial to the operation and development of the enterprise is still a controversial issue.With this in mind,this paper takes listed domestic family firms from 2014 to 2016 as the research samples to discuss the influence of the sibling involvement on the operating efficiency of the enterprise from the perspective of sibling relationship.Our research discovers that:(1)Compared with other types of family firms,sibling-type family firms have higher operating efficiency,which is manifested in the relatively low enterprise management and operating expense ratios,and the relatively high total capital turnover ratio;(2)According to further analysis,the traditional culture acts as the moderating factor,which can enhance the effect of sibling relationship on the operating efficiency of enterprises;(3)After classifying the enterprise samples based on the sibling characteristics,and according to the result,the differences of sibling affinities and intergenerational relationships can also lead to the different operating efficiencies in family firms;(4)At the same time,this paper also discovered that differences involvement degree of the sibling members can also affect the promotion effects of sibling relationship on operating efficiency;(5)Furthermore,this paper also explored the effect of enterprise characteristic heterogeneity on the operating efficiency of sibling-type enterprises,and the result shows that the sibling relationship also has different influence on operating efficiency of enterprises with different sizes or counterbalancing conditions of the sibling stockholders.This paper not only enriches the existing researches on the governance of family firms,but also provides empirical supports for improving the governance structure and operating efficiency of sibling-type family firms.