SYNOPSIS Family firms represent a majority of businesses worldwide, and play a crucial role in the socio-economic development of both developed countries and emerging economies. We study the relationship between family firm characteristics and the quality of internal control over financial reporting, relative to non-family firms. Using a relatively large sample of S&P 500 firms, we report that family firms exhibit more material weaknesses in their internal control over financial reporting than non-family firms. Further investigation suggests that the greater likelihood of material weaknesses is driven by family firms with dual-class shares. Our results are consistent with the entrenchment argument that family owners are motivated to maintain weaker internal controls in order to extract private benefits. Our study contributes to the extant literature on family firms by providing further insight into the mechanisms through which family firms can exert undue influence on internal control over financial reporting.

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This paper integrates sociological and psychological perspectives to examine gay consumption practices in relation to the dynamics of gay identity development. Specifically, this paper investigates how internal motivational factors underlying gay identity formation and external social influence work in concert to affect gay identity attempts throughout the gay identity development process. The findings of this study reveal that the consumption patterns of gay men are continuously evolving and correspond to attempts at discovering, disclosing, constructing, maintaining, (re)constructing, suppressing, and/or disposing the gay social identity. Precipitated by individual differences, two divergent pathways-the linear progression and pendular progression pathways-of identity attempts emerged from the gay identity development process. The data used in this study were collected through in-depth interviews with gay men in Taiwan, where homosexuality is traditionally stigmatized but is gradually gaining acceptance with the global emergence and spread of the gay subculture.