二代接班过程中媒体家族性报道对家族企业价值的影响

Media Coverage and Family Firm Value during Intergenerational Succession

现有研究已经关注到,家族企业在代际传承过程中会面临重大外部压力。但是,我们尚不清楚外部利益相关者会以何种逻辑来理解和评价处于这一敏感时期的家族企业。本文着重讨论媒体对于家族成员家族性信息的报道如何影响资本市场对于二代接班初期家族企业价值的估计。实证结果表明:一方面,媒体对于二代领导者家族性信息报道数量越多,企业市场价值越高,且媒体对于创始人家族性信息报道数量对主效应起正向调节作用;另一方面,媒体对于二代领导者家族性信息报道口吻越正面,企业市场价值越高,但媒体对于创始人家族性信息报道口吻对主效应起倒“U”型调节作用。基于二代接班这一特定CEO继任情境,本文的结论拓展了对外部方如何评价CEO继任这一问题的理解,同时剖析了社会赞许何时会成为组织负担。

Intergenerational successions in family firms are usually challengeable.One of the key reasons is that family firms likely lose external supports after later-generation members taking over key managerial positions.In Singapore,Hong Kong and Taiwan,the value of family firms can fall by about 60 percent in a 5-year period before and after intra-family succession(Bennedsen et al.,2015).How capital market evaluate family firm value during succession?Up to date,fragmentary evidence suggests that investors evaluate family firm succession mainly based on the successor’s competence such as education level.However,to our surprise,though a large number of studies indicate family dynamic can predict family firm behavior and outcomes during succession,it is still unexplored whether investors would search for family dynamic information and integrate them into family firm valuation.In this study,we respond to the above questions by focusing on media news related with key family members.As there is not presupposed theme and format in media,investors can access to family dynamic through multiple forms of media reports—family business news,commentary articles or even romantic gossips.Therefore,comparing with other sources,media report becomes as a main information channel of family-related issues.Then,we build our theory based on two perspectives.First,media reports on family issue reduce investors’perception of information asymmetry,which in turn increase stock liquidity and market value.Second,media tone can be interpreted as the extent of social approval that certain family members may receive.Investors would thus evaluate the quality of family succession by combining these observable social approval clues together and comparing it with prototypical family renewal mode defined by family logic.We then examine the model using listed-firm sample in China A-share market during 2003 and 2017.We identify family firms by the following criteria:(a)20 percent or more beneficial(voting)ownership is held by a single person or multiple persons from one family and(b)at least two persons from this family serves as board director and/or top manager in the firm.After that,we manually check intergenerational CEO succession cases from the full family firm sample.Finally,we find 108 intergenerational succession cases which generate 411 firm-year observations(i.e.,time window is limited to the first 6 years after succession for each case).Fixed effect model is used to analyze panel data,and the endogenous problems are dealt with under 2sls setting.The findings are as follow:first,the greater volume of media familial coverage related with heir CEO,the higher the firm value;this main effect is strengthened by the volume of media familial coverage related with the founder.Second,the more positive the tone of media familial coverage related with heir CEO,the higher the firm value;this main effect is the strongest when the tone of media familial coverage related with the founder is neutral rather than positive or negative.This study makes contributions in the following aspects.First,we advance the study of capital market responses to CEO succession.Our findings suggest that capital market regards the intergenerational CEO succession in family firms as a unique CEO succession pattern.They thus attempt to embed this succession into the context of family for more precise understanding,and use the legitimacy template corresponding with family logic for valuations.This can be seen in the following:When investors notice that CEO succession happens in family context,they see family dynamics as an important aspect of market valuation and try to infer family dynamics indirectly through the combination of multiple media signals.The above findings further reflect the theoretical particularity of the capital market’s evaluation towards the intergenerational succession process in family firms.Second,the study adds to the discussion about the side-effects of positive media tones.Like other types of social approving assets,positive media tone has long been considered an undisputed organizational asset.The findings of this study challenge the above view to some extent:positive media coverage helps some organization members gain social support,enabling them to go against the decisions of core leaders,and thus destabilizing the organization.For highly opaque organizations,it is difficult for capital markets to exactly know whether such concerns will occur,so they are more inclined to price them in as a risk.Thus,the positive media reports of the other members of the organization become a burden on the organizational-level.Specifically,to our research,in the highly opaque intergenerational succession,the capital market concern more that the founder with positive media coverage will use this social asset to hinder successor’power in decision-making.As a result,they tend to favor founders who receive neutral rather than positive media coverage.