Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the factors identified in the model of influence of family relationships in a process of succession. Design/methodology/approach – To that end, an exploratory factor analysis of a model is conducted. Such model includes four factors: family cohesion and adaptability, family commitment with the business, the relationship between the owner-manager and the successor, and the planning and training of the successor. Findings – The results confirm the relevance of the four factors used and enable the authors to identify the structure of their coefficients within each factor. Originality/value – Family involvement constitutes one of the most influential factors in the complex management of family businesses, as it can even threaten their survival. One of the most critical moments in the life of a family business is the interaction during the succession process. Therefore, the succession process continues to be a topic of growing interest to researchers in the family business literature. Given the importance of family business succession.

This work focused on analyzing whether the ownership structure has any effect on the dividend policy of companies in the Mexican market. The decision of dividend payment is one of the major elements in corporate policy, as this dividend policy influences the value of the company. Therefore, decisions such as adopting a company growth policy through the reinvestment of profits, or better yet allocating them to the payment of dividends, are going to be influenced by the type of ownership structure that dominates the company. The analysis was based on three types of ownership structures such as: families, institutions (mainly banks) and small blocks of shareholders. Our results show that the concentration of property in families negatively influences the payment of dividends, whereas the presence of institutional shareholders has an inverse effect on the payment of the same. This indicates that the presence of big shareholders foreign to the families has a different effect on the payment policy of dividends in the Mexican context. This work provides literature information about the context of emerging countries as is the case of Mexico, given that much of the existing investigations focus on European or North American contexts, where the markets are well regulated and property is broadly distributed.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the relationship between different types of shareholders that command share ownership, family, institutions or external blockholders and earnings management. In addition, it examines the effect of company size on earnings management. Design/methodology/approach The sample includes 67 companies listed in the Mexican Stock Exchange for the period 2005-2015. The sample composition is quite industry-balanced. A cross-sectional version of the Jones model (1991) is to measure the earnings management. The GMM (generalized method of moments) model is also estimated. Findings The results show that family and institutional ownership reduce the earnings management, but the impact is different depending on the company size. Research limitations/implications The results show that there is a clear relationship between increasing participation of family and institutional investors and a reduction in earnings management. This is consistent with the literature that establishes that ownership is an effective regulatory mechanism that limits earnings management through closer supervision and involvement in management. Practical/implications For companies’ corporate governance and regulatory authorities, the results of this study may serve to improve the decision-making. Originality/value This study shows that ownership structure can provide corporate governance in Mexican listed companies with different monitoring and control capacities to influence companies’ strategies, particularly in relation to the discretion of earnings management.

This article studies the relation between ownership structure and performance of 90 Mexican firms for the period 2005-2009. We used a two-stages least squares (2SLS) and generalized method of moments (GMM) because we consider the ownership structure as endogenous, and wish will be the most appropriate given the characteristics of the environment in which the company operates (Shlelifer & Vishny, 1997; La Porta et al., 2000). The results obtained show a greater performance as to how ownership is concentrated in the Mexican market. This result derives from the institutional framework prevailing in the country where the companies were analyzed. In the Mexican case, the firms with high levels of ownership concentration, especially families, seek a better way to protect their interests. However, this high concentration in families leads to the use of additional governance mechanisms, such as debt or board structure, that have peculiar results (works such as substitutes or reinforcing components).

Las empresas familiares, además de tomar decisiones respecto a los problemas que les afectan, como todas las empresas, deben ser capaces de gestionar de forma adecuada la relación empresa-familia, evaluando las dinámicas que rigen la conducta de fundadores, próximas generaciones, familia, accionistas y empresa. Por tanto, es importante desarrollar habilidades que les permitan identificar y resolver las dificultades que planteen estas dinámicas y adoptar estrategias para fomentar su crecimiento, transferir el poder y el control, buscando generar valor para la compañía. Es por ello que este trabajo analiza el efecto de la sucesión en la estructura financiera y de capital de las empresas familiares. Basados en una muestra de empresas públicas mexicanas durante los periodos 2005-2011, encontramos que los efectos de la sucesión sobre el desempeño financiero de estas compañías es diferente al efecto que ejerce sobre ese desempeño una tercera generación al frente de la empresa, por lo que empresas familiares de segunda generación se caracterizan por mostrar una mayor aversión al riesgo en cuanto a endeudamiento, y una actitud más conservadora en comparación con empresas familiares de tercera generación, caracterizadas por una mayor preferencia por la financiación a través de la deuda, orientadas hacia una mayor creación de valor para la compañía. Derechos Reservados © 2015 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Contaduría y Administración. Este es un artículo de acceso abierto distribuido bajo los términos de la Licencia Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.