3 essays on corporate governance, firm value and strategy: Evidence from founding family firms

In my dissertation, I examine how the corporate governance structure may affect the firm value in the market for control and affect strategic behavior of the firm. Particularly, I focus on founding family business firms which have been largely understudied in the management literature. In my first essay, I empirically examine how founder management affects takeover premiums in mergers and acquisitions in 2000s. I argue that a founder manager's unique perspective, values, and influence on the process of the firm's strategic decisions may systematically affect the firm value of both the target and acquiring firms in the M&A market. I specifically examine how founder management affects both target firm value and bidder firm value. I suggest that it is not managerial control per se, but rather who the managers are and their priorities and preferences that most influence corporate value in the marker for control. The second essay analyzes the impact of family ownership, management and control on the strategic investment of the firm. I specifically examine the effect of family ownership concentration level, identity of management, and control enhancing mechanisms on R&D investments. I find that there is an inverted U-shape relationship between the ownership concentration levels of family controlled firms and R&D investment. I also find that firms with family shareholder managers are more likely to have higher levels of R&D investment. The third essay examines how family-control and business group affiliation may influence a firm's investment in R&D. I argue that family control and business group affiliation have separate and distinct effects on firms' strategic actions, although the two firm characteristics are often closely intertwined among firms. Our findings show that when a standalone firm is controlled by a family, the firm invests more in R&D. In contrast, I also find that when a family controls a business group, firms that belong to the family-controlled business group will invest less in R&D. My findings suggest that while families may generally have a long-term perspective for their firms, business groups may provide some incentives and opportunities to the families to expropriate the firm value.