An Integrative View of Corporate Transparency in Family Businesses

Abstract

Transparency is a key factor in ensuring family firms' commercial success and establishing and nurturing trust among stakeholders, including managers and teams. However, transparency appears to depend on business contexts and, more specifically, on family members' involvement in these companies, which helps explain researchers' growing interest in corporate transparency in family firms. This chapter examines the most relevant literature on this topic to provide an integrative overview of studies of transparency practices in family businesses and identify the main research gaps that comprise paths for future investigations. To this end, a non-systematic compilation and review was conducted of 50 related articles published in journals included in the Academic Journal Guide 2021. Content analysis revealed that the majority are based on empirical research focusing on the quality of information disclosed via earnings management. The most significant findings are discussed in this chapter, including research questions to be answered in further studies of this topic.