THE IMPACT OF OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE ON FIRM PERFORMANCE: THE ROLE OF CHAIRMAN AND CEO IN PORTUGAL
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Lious Ntoung Agbor Tabot 
, Jorge Eduardo Vila Biglieri , Helena Maria Santos de Oliveira , Benjamim Manuel Ferreira de Sousa , Ben Chettah Outman, Eva Masárová
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This analysis investigates how family ownership structure affects the corporate performance of Portuguese listed firms using a panel data set covering the period from 2006 to 2014. Three characteristics of family firms (such as active management, active founder or heir and second blockholder) were examined with respect to the corporate performance. The main finding is that family firms over perform non-family in term productivity and profitability. This indicates that companies that have total family control are more productive and profitable than those market favour firms that the family does not have total ownership. Specifically, family firms with active founders perform better whereas those with active heirs significantly outperform compared to family firms with passive owners or heirs. Family firms with a family member in the company as either CEO or Chairman create more value and are more profitable than non-family firms. Family firms with descendant as CEO perform better meanwhile family firms with the founder as CEO significantly outperform family firms with Outside CEO for corporate performance. Lastly, the presence of a second blockholder who owns between 5-10% of the voting right enhances the corporate performance of the family firms as it counterbalances the controlling shareholder from unnecessary behaviours.
Keywords: Family, Ownership Structure, Founder, Descendant, Market and Accounting Performance
Received: 12.04.2017
Accepted: 14.08.2017
How to cite this paper: Ntoung, L. A. T., Vila Biglieri, J. E., Santos de Oliveira, H. M., Ferreira de Sousa, B.M., Outman, B. C., & Masárová, E. (2017). The impact of ownership structure on firm performance: The role of chairman and CEO in Portugal. Corporate Board: role, duties and composition, 13(2), 6-19. https://doi.org/10.22495/cbv13i2art1
