Unique Goals of Family Businesses and Their Absorption of Finance Instruments in the Financialization Era

Abstract

Nowadays financialization seems to be an inherent and obvious phenomenon and it appears to have infected all industrialized economies. Within general phenomenon of financialization, three areas should be indicated: financialization as a system of capital accumulation, financialization of business entities and financialization of every day-life. In our paper we try to investigate family businesses that are unique due to the overlap of family and business subsystems in one entity. More specifically, we undertake to find out whether intertwining of family values with business objectives can influence the level of absorption of various finance instruments that are offered on nowadays financial market. Analysis revealed a few statistically significant relationships between perception of family firm objectives and absorption of basic and sophisticated finance instruments. It is the first to suggest, that family firms which are intrinsically-oriented, i.e. those more willing to keep independence or to keep long term survival, are less prone to absorb sophisticated finance instruments, e.g. private equity, venture capital, hybrid capital or they are less keen to become a public company. On the other hand, if a family firm is more oriented towards risk minimisation or keeping long term growth, then it is also more open for absorption of advanced finance instruments.