Prior economic research is very critical about family CEOs and family management. Nepotism, altruism, lower managerial … abilities, and a small pool of qualified family candidates are cited as reasons that speak against family management. Still, the … empirical reality is different. A surprisingly large share of firms is run by family managers. Our study provides a rational …

The financial performance of family firms has been widely studied in the literature. Combining the results of 172 … primary studies from 38 countries with data about business cycles, we investigated how family firm performance changes over … the business cycle. Using meta-analytic estimation methods, we found that family firms slightly outperform nonfamily firms …

This study presents the results of a comprehensive meta-analysis on the financial performance of family firms. Drawing … on a sample of 380 studies, we find that family firms show economically weak, albeit statistically significant, superior … performance compared to non-family firms. Furthermore, we find moderating factors on country, firm, and family level to …