Family Versus External Block Holders’ Ownership and Firm Performance: Empirical Evidence from India

Abstract

This article studies the non-linear relation between family ownership and firm performance (FP) in the Indian context by taking firms listed on NSE 500. The sample firms are investigated for 11 years, 2011–2021. The article also tries to study the impact of various categories of external block holders on the performance of Indian family firms due to their capacity to pressure management and monitor their actions. The study results show a U-shaped relation between family ownership and Indian family firms’ performance, as depicted by ROA and TQ. The findings further suggest that two prominent kinds of outside block holders that have been observed to be related to greater performance in family firms are government and foreign institutional shareholders. Thus, it can be assumed that these external block holders’ greater monitoring ability is linked with reduced agency costs and increased FP. The study is unique in finding out the influence of the ownership and governance mechanisms in the sample of Indian family firms on their performance.