改制型家族企业更愿意进行长期投资吗?——基于心理所有权视角的分析

Privatized Family Firms,De Novo Family Firms,and Long-term Investments:A“Psychological Ownership”Perspective

国有企业改制作为中国经济转型的重要举措,是中国民营家族企业的独特来源,对民营家族企业的长期可持续发展有着深远的影响。本文聚焦于改制这一独特的历史数据分析组织历史来源对中国民营家族企业长期投资导向的影响。基于2008~2016年中国上市家族企业数据,得出以下结论:第一,改制型家族企业由于企业家的心理所有权较弱,企业长期投资水平相对较低。第二,企业家在改制前进入企业的情况下,由于对企业拥有更高水平的熟悉度和认同感,会有更高水平的心理所有权,进而使改制型企业在长期投资中更加积极。第三,欠发达的制度环境将强化心理所有权较弱的企业家的不确定性规避倾向,进而削弱企业的长期投资水平。本文揭示了影响中国民营家族企业长期投资导向的重要历史因素,并为中国民营经济的长期存续提供了可行的建议。

Prior studies on the Chinese family firms suggest that the long-term orientation is impacted by both family firm characteristics—such as the high dependence on entrepreneurs,firm culture,and succession plan—and their entrepreneurs’char⁃acteristics—such as the relationship between founders and successors.However,few of them notice that the privatization of stateown firms(SOEs)in China can also act as an important institutional factor that modifies the long-term orientation of family own⁃ers.As one of the most influential reforms during the economic transition in China,the privatization of SOEs leads to the down⁃sizing or cutting off of lots of SOEs and the born of a special type of family firm—privatized family firms simultaneously.Thus,in this paper,we ask the following research question:How does the origin of family firms influence their long-term investments?From a psychological ownership perspective,this paper proposes that as compared with de novo family firms,privatized family firms will have a lower level of long-term investment,because the family owners of privatized firms have weaker psychological own⁃ership.We further posit that this negative relationship will be weakened if family owners joined the firms prior to their privatization because longer involvement in the firms will likely strengthen the psychological ownership.On the other hand,the negative relation⁃ship between privatized firms and long-term investment will be stronger in a more underdeveloped institutional environment.Using a sample of Chinese private firms listed on the Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges from 2008 to 2016,the research finding suggests that privatized family firms invest less in the long-term than de novo family firms because their entrepreneurs have weaker psychological ownership to their firms,resulting from the origin of family firms.By introducing the founders’characteristics and institutional characteristics in our research model,our finding implies that if family owners joined the firms prior to their priva⁃tization,the above relationship would be weakened,whereas if family firms are located in an environment with more undeveloped institutions,the above relationship will be strengthened.This study makes three main theoretical contributions:first,this study contributes to the literature on Chinese family firms by introducing a long-neglected context—the privatization of SOEs.Second,this study contributes to the research about entrepreneurs of Chinese family firms through uncovering the heterogeneity of psychological ownership among family owners of different family firms.Third,this discusses the antecedences of long-term investment of family firms in China from a historical perspective,which provides a further explanation for the lack of long-term orientation in Chinese private economies.Future research may further explore the impacts of SOEs privatization on family firms by discussing the complex process of privatization in detail. Besides, this study is constrained by the archival data and cannot directly capture the psychological mecha⁃nism—the psychological ownership—between privatized family firms and long-term investment. Scholars can discuss and examineentrepreneurs’ psychological dynamism through surveys or interviews.