Family Ownership During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

We study how the involvement of families in ownership and governance positions affects the stock-market and accounting performance of Italian listed firms during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that firms with controlling family shareholders fared significantly better than other firms throughout the pandemic period. This effect is particularly pronounced for firms in which a family is both the controlling shareholder and holds the CEO position. Delving into the mechanisms, we further show that family firms primarily outperformed in labor-intensive industries. Collectively, our results expand a growing research on the organizational response to adverse events.

Keywords: Family Business, COVID-19, Performance, CEOs

JEL Classification: G34, D10