The Theoretical Lineage and Evolutionary Logic of Research on the Environmental Behavior of Family Firms: A Literature Review
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Research Dimensions of the Environmental Behavior of Family Firms
2.1. Definition of Family Firms
2.2. Corporate Environmental Behavior
2.3. Research Dimensions of the Environmental Behavior of Family Firms
2.3.1. Dimension of Environmental Responsibility
2.3.2. Dimension of Economics
2.3.3. Dimension of Strategic Management
3. Influencing Factors of Family Firm Environmental Behavior
3.1. Homogeneity Perspective
3.1.1. SEW Theory and the Environmental Behavior of Family Firms
3.1.2. SEW Dark Side Theory and the Environmental Behavior of Family Firms
3.1.3. Agency Theory and the Environmental Behavior of Family Firms
3.1.4. Other Homogeneity Studies
3.2. Heterogeneity Perspective
3.2.1. Heterogeneity Study of Family Firms
3.2.2. Heterogeneity Study of Environmental Behavior of Family Firms
4. Study on the Influence Effect of Environmental Behavior of Family Firms
4.1. Interorganizational and Intraorganizational Relationships of Family Firms
4.2. Economic Performance, Institutional Performance, and Environmental Performance
4.2.1. Economic Performance
4.2.2. Institutional Performance
4.2.3. Environmental Performance
4.3. Environmental Behavior of Family Firms and Public Health
4.3.1. Environmental Pollution, Environmental Responsibility, and Public Health
4.3.2. Healthy Capital, Employee Health, and Public Health
5. Conclusions and Discussion
6. Implications and Future Research Direction
6.1. Implications
6.2. Future Research Direction
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Research Dimension | Environmental Responsibility | Economics | Strategic Management |
---|---|---|---|
Research level | Organization | Industry, organization | Organization |
Research topic | Strengthen the environmental responsibility of enterprises from the aspect of ethic | The impact of environmental regulation on the competitiveness of family firms | Family firm environment behavior choice and the source of competitive advantage |
Research method | Qualitative research | Model construction and metrological inspection | Qualitative research |
Research Classification | Representative Views | |
---|---|---|
Homogeneity Perspective Study | SEW Theory | Family-controlled public companies will protect their socioemotional wealth by acquiring better environmental behavior than non-family firms. (Berrone et al. 2010) |
Under the combined effect of SEW goals and economic wealth goals, the environmental behavior of family firms initially lags behind that of non-family firms, but gradually catches up to form a convergence process. (Doluca et al. 2018) | ||
Family firms have a stronger propensity to green innovation than non-family firms driven by the internal motivation to preserve extended social emotional wealth and external institutional pressure. (Ma, Zhu and He 2020) | ||
SEW Dark Side Theory | There is a negative effect of family ownership and management involvement on the fulfillment of ER of private enterprises. (Zhou and Zhao 2017) | |
Absolute family ownership of firms may reduce incentives and limit opportunities for family firms to improve their environmental social performance. (Samara et al. 2018) | ||
Family firms with the most significant family control and influence on the SEW dimension provide less environmental information than non-family firms. (Arena and Michelon 2018) | ||
Agency Theory | Family firms do not perform as well as non-family firms in terms of environmental performance, and investment in training explains the negative association between family majority shareholders and environmental performance. (Dal Maso 2020) | |
Majority shareholders do not necessarily incur a loss of benefits to minority shareholders when investing in environmental activities, and type II agency problems do not arise in the environmental behavior of family firms. (Cordeiro et al. 2021) | ||
Family firms are more responsible to shareholders than non-family firms when it comes to making environmental investments. (Abeysekera and Fernando 2020) | ||
Heterogeneity Perspective Study | Family ownership, family shareholding, and family control ability influence the environmental behavior of family firms. (Kariyapperuma and Collins 2021; Zhou and Zhao 2017; Zhu et al. 2022; Zhou et al. 2020) | |
Family members as chairman, family management rights, innovative management, and family willingness to control influence the environmental behavior of family firms. (Kazancoglu et al. 2021; Benjiang Ma et al. 2022; Zhu, Lina et al. 2022) | ||
The personal and family values of the founder and the health and safety requirements of family members play a dominant role in the environmental behavior of family firms. (Kariyapperuma and Collins 2021) |
Influence Effect | Main Viewpoints | |
---|---|---|
Institutional performance | Corporate environmental legality (Berrone et al. 2010; Fan et al. 2021) | |
Economic performance | Financial performance | Positive equity market returns (Cordeiro et al. 2021) Improvement in the level of bank lending (Tan 2021) Improvement in financial performance and operating performance (Dangelico et al. 2019) Improvement in innovation capacity and financial performance (Craig and Dibrell 2006) |
Nonfinancial performance | Improvement of corporate reputation (Dangelico et al. 2019) The protection of socioemotional wealth (Berrone et al. 2010; Cruz et al. 2014; Samara et al. 2017; Dayan et al. 2019) The protection of extended socioemotional wealth (Ma et al. 2020) Meeting the long-term orientation needs of businesses (Breton-Miller et al. 2016) Holding the future economic income of families (Miller et al. 2009) Satisfying internal stakeholders (Huang et al. 2009) Ensuring product quality, employee health and corporate reputation (Kariyapperuma et al. 2021) | |
Environmental performance | Positive correlation | Preventing and mitigating environmental crises and reducing environmental impacts (Samara et al. 2018) Development of green innovation capacity (Han et al. 2022) Positive environmental attitudes of employees (Nikolakis et al. 2022) Environmental education for employees (Samara et al. 2017) |
Negative correlation | Threaten the family’s control and influence over the business (Arena and Michelon 2018) Burden the full economic risk of environmental investments (Dekker and Hasso 2016) Costly agency costs for family firms (Miroshnychenko et al. 2022) Inadequate capacity for green innovation and risk-averse tendencies (Aiello et al. 2021) |
Researcher | Theory | Independent Variables | Dependent Variable(s) | Sample | Relationship |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Craig and Dibrell (2006) | Organization and natural environment literature | Family firms, natural environmental policies | Natural environmental policies, firm’s innovation, and firm’s performance | 391 small and medium U.S. firms | +/− |
Berrone et al. (2010) | Socioemotional wealth perspective | Family firms (dummy variable), local roots, CEO stock ownership, family CEO and CEO duality | Environmental performance (human toxicity potential) | 194 U.S. firms required to report their emissions to the EPA | +/− |
Dekker and Hasso (2016) | Institutional theory | Family firms, social embeddedness | Environmental performance focus based on the Business | 1452 private Australian small and medium-sized enterprises | −/+ |
Samara et al. (2018) | Socioemotional wealth perspective | Family ownership, family involvement in management | Environmental social performance of the STEP | 146 family firms of the STEP database | +/+/0 |
Dangelico, Nastasi, and Pisa (2019) | Multiple case study | Family firms vs. nonfamily firms | Green innovation | 14 small enterprises from the agri-food industry in Italy (7 family and 7 nonfamily firm | 0 |
Dal Maso et al. (2020) | Secondary agency theory | Family ownership and investments in training and development practices (mediation) | Asset4 environmental performance score (environment) | 3901 firm-year observations from 2002 to 2016 distributed across 56 countries | - |
Fan (2021) | Agency theory and institutional theory | Family ownership, founder-CEOs | pollution prevention strategy | 2348 Chinese private enterprises in primary and secondary sectors. | −/+ |
Nikolakis (2022) | Socioemotional wealth perspective (using a stated choice method) | Relational conflict, trust, sustainability vision, SEW, family in control, environmental norms | Environmental and social strategies | 119 family business representatives from Chile and 120 from India | −/+ |
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Geng, L.; Lu, X.; Zhang, C. The Theoretical Lineage and Evolutionary Logic of Research on the Environmental Behavior of Family Firms: A Literature Review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20, 4768. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20064768
Geng L, Lu X, Zhang C. The Theoretical Lineage and Evolutionary Logic of Research on the Environmental Behavior of Family Firms: A Literature Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2023; 20(6):4768. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20064768
Chicago/Turabian StyleGeng, Limin, Xueyuan Lu, and Can Zhang. 2023. "The Theoretical Lineage and Evolutionary Logic of Research on the Environmental Behavior of Family Firms: A Literature Review" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 20, no. 6: 4768. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20064768