 Agency Relations within the Family Business System: an exploratory approachL.A.A. Van den Berghe and Steven Carchon Corporate Governance: An International Review, 2003, vol. 11, issue 3, 171-179 Abstract: Researchers use various definitions to describe the family firm. The characteristics of family firms that are stressed in each of these definitions are somehow related to family control. All characteristics together reflect a spectrum of family firm types along one core dimension: family involvement in the firm. However, it is more helpful to distinguish among family firms by using their precise type. Each particular family firm type is characterised by a set of agency relations within and between the family system, ownership system and the business system. This paper is a first attempt to apply the insights from agency theory on a highly simplified (reference) family firm situation where the father is full owner and the daughter manager of the family firm. Agency theory establishes the foundation for the optimal contract conditions between father and daughter. While real life is often characterised by bounded rationality and incomplete information, future research should help identify the “optimal contract” be‐tween the family/shareholders and management in various family firm types under these circumstances. Date: 2003 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:corgov:v:11:y:2003:i:3:p:171-179 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Corporate Governance: An International Review is currently edited by William Judge More articles in Corporate Governance: An International Review from Wiley Blackwell |
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