Family business definition: a matter of concern or a matter of convenience?

Abstract

This paper attempts to examine the impact of adopting multiple family ownership cut-offs in defining family businesses, family ownership measurements, and conducting different types of analyses. For achieving this goal we have focus on the relationship between family ownership and firm performance (ROA) in the context of emerging market (Saudi Arabia), controlling for firm’s debt, age, size and industry sectors. With three family ownership cut-offs: 5%, 10%, and 20% and two type of analysis (cross-sectional and cross-sectional and time-series data) as well as two types of family ownership measures (ratio and dummy), we fond that the relationship between the two variables is consistent despite of the level of family ownership cut-off, analysis type, and measurement. This indicates that family business definition is not a matter of concern for researchers, but rather a matter of convenience.