Family Business Research through the Eyes of a Lender: A Cognitive Framework for Interpreting Research Findings on Family Firms

Abstract

Whereas most extant studies comparing the performance of family firms relative to non-family firms document contradicting results, only a rather limited number of recent studies have attempted to use family firm governance structures to reconcile the conflicting empirical findings. This paper fills this gap by developing a cognitive framework that connects family firm governance, resource endowment, and resource adaptation with a firm’s static default orientation. The cognitive framework is then used to propose lending criteria to a typical lender, and also to generate theoretical propositions regarding access to and cost of debt finance for different types of family firms. Apart from providing insights to lenders on the theoretical default characteristics of different types of family firms (and not family firms in general), the paper also presents a theoretical benchmark for the analysis of empirical findings on debt financing in family firms as well as observed default behavior among family firms