The CSR policy of family firmsthe trade-off between internal and external stakeholders, persistence and financial consequences

Resumen

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to study the extent to which family ownership influences corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and consequences. Family ownership is one of the most common corporate forms worldwide among the different types of business ownership. Given their weight in the total number of firms around the world, family firms make an important social and economic contribution. According to the European Family Businesses (2022), family firms account for 65 to 80% of European companies and contribute between 40 to 50% of total employment. Their weight in the European economy is also recognized by contributing 40% of the gross domestic product (Deutsche Bank, 2018). The relevance of the role of the family business has motivated the interest of researchers to understand its managerial dynamics and how it differs from the non-family firm. In particular, the field of family business research has been concerned with understanding how they make strategic decisions such as CSR. CSR, in turn, has received great attention from practitioners and academics to the extent that companies are key players in the international concert of social and environmental demands. In the area of family businesses, there is no doubt that their impact on CSR has been the subject of growing interest among scholars. Despite the increased interest, the relationship between family businesses and CSR is still considered a young research topic (Kuttner & Feldbauer-Durstmüller, 2018; Stock et al., 2023), as many issues remain unanswered or partially answered (Kuttner & Feldbauer-Durstmüller, 2018). To achieve the goal of this thesis, which is to study the effect of family ownership on firms¿ CSR practices and consequences, we have conducted three empirical essays from different perspectives heeding the calls of various researchers (Canavati, 2018; Mariani et al., 2021; Stock et al., 2023). The first essay seeks to examine the priorities of family firms, compared to non-family firms, concerning the type of internal versus external CSR practices. The emphasis here will be to understand how family firms prioritize internal or external CSR practices and how the family objectives are reflected in their preferences. The second essay advances in the effect of family ownership on the consequences of CSR. More precisely, we analyze the effect of the type of CSR practices (internal - external) on firms¿ trade credit. Trade credit refers to the short-term financing that firms receive from their suppliers. In addition, we study the moderating role of the family firm in the CSR and trade credit relationship. Finally, the third essay investigates the determinants of persistence in CSR, such as the direct effect of the performance aspiration gap and the indirect effect of family ownership. In this paper, we deepen the analysis of CSR over time, as consequences of CSR such as reputation require the long-term commitment of firms in order for the reputation to be consolidated among stakeholders.