The financial decisions of family businesses

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the status, trends and potential future research areas in the field of financial decision-making process in family firms. Design/methodology/approach The bibliometric indicators and methods are applied in order to describe the publication activity and to analyze the contents of the articles. The material examined are the journals included in the SCOPUS, SAGE and EBSCO database and the peer-reviewed article, which contain in their titles, keywords or abstracts with a combination of phrases “family firms,” “family business” or “family enterprise” with “financial decision” or one of the subcategories: capital structure, investment decision, capital budgeting, working capital management or dividend policy. The study covers the period from 2000 to 2016. Findings Although the interest in family business research is growing rapidly, the area of financial decision making is underestimated. Despite of the fact that the vast majority of the studies into financial decisions in family firms is are focused on the capital structure, they do not give clear answers to the question of how the family businesses behave in this scope and what their true financial logic is. Additionally, the area of the investment decisions and dividend policy is rather not better left uncovered. Research limitations/implications The analyses enable the identification of potential avenues for future research which could be vital to make an advancement in the consolidation of the discipline. Practical implications The analyses ought to have a potential meaning mainly for external institutions (especially financial institutions) in better understanding of the family businesses and their point of view. Originality/value This paper fulfills the need of a comprehensive review of financial decision making process in family firms. It provides a literature review and bibliography for the period between 2000 and 2016 for the use of both academicians and practitioners.