Publication Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
6-2008
Abstract
We examine the voluntary disclosure practices of family firms. We find that, compared to nonfamily firms, family firms provide fewer earnings forecasts and conference calls, but more earnings warnings. Whereas the former is consistent with family owners having a longer investment horizon, better monitoring of management, and lower information asymmetry between owners and managers, the higher likelihood of earnings warnings is consistent with family owners having greater litigation and reputation cost concerns. We also document that family ownership dominates nonfamily insider ownership and concentrated institutional ownership in explaining the likelihood of voluntary disclosure. Using alternative proxies for the founding family's presence in the firm leads to similar results.
Discipline
Accounting | Corporate Finance
Research Areas
Corporate Reporting and Disclosure
Publication
Journal of Accounting Research
Volume
46
Issue
3
First Page
499
Last Page
536
ISSN
0021-8456
Identifier
10.1111/j.1475-679X.2008.00288.x
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
CHEN, Xia; CHEN, Shuping; and CHENG, Qiang.
Do family firms provide more or less voluntary disclosure?. (2008). Journal of Accounting Research. 46, (3), 499-536.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soa_research/819
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.