Corporate Governance Of Family Firms In Subsequent Generations

Abstract

This paper addresses the differences in corporate governance regarding generations of Austrian and German family businesses. Generations differ from each other significantly with respect to the percentage of non-family executives in management boards. The existence of a supervisory board differs between founder and subsequent generations, but it turns out that with transfer of ownership to subsequent generations, there is no noticeable trend concerning the percentage of non-family members in supervisory boards. Thus, this study demonstrates the importance of a comprehensive and profound analysis of generation-specific characteristics.