This paper offers a review of the theoretical and empirical literature addressing boards of directors within the unique organizational setting of family businesses. By reviewing and structuring past research, this paper aims to improve the understanding of how family involvement in firms affects the roles and behaviours of boards. The review of the literature is structured according to the family business board's two primary tasks as an internal administrative body, namely the exercise of control and the provision of advice. For both board tasks, theoretical perspectives and the match between theory and empirical findings will be discussed. The review concludes by offering an integrative discussion of the relevant theories and by highlighting the need for multi-theoretic, process and contextualized approaches in future research on boards of directors in family businesses.

This study focuses on the determinants of board composition in

The purpose of this study is to advance the understanding of boards of directors in family firms. Building on generational changes in family attributes, we argue that firms in a different generational phase have different governance needs and characteristics. With regard to board task needs, the empirical results indicate a convex generational evolution in the need for board advice, and a rise over the generations in the need for board control. With regard to board composition, we find that the likelihood of having an outside director on the board has a convex generational trend. This relationship seems to be fully mediated by the firm's board task needs. Furthermore, the number of family directors seems to increase over the generations. This study demonstrates that it is important to consider the generational phase of the family firm in order to understand its governance system.

Earnings management in firms has several different motivations. This article examines the preserving of socioemotional wealth as a motive for earnings management in specific types of private family firms by looking at the generational stage, the management team, and the CEO position. The authors’ results suggest that socioemotional wealth may play a role as motive for upward earnings management when firm performance is poor. Under this condition, first-generation and founder-led private family firms seem to have greater incentive to engage in upward earnings management because of the preservation of their socioemotional wealth.

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