Dynamics of Corporate Governance Mechanisms - Family Firms’ Performance Relationship- a Meta-Analytic Review

Corporate board is considered as effective corporate governance mechanism (CGM) of family firms (FF) playing a critical monitoring role and enhancing performance. FFs are, in general, quite different from non-FFs in the ownership structures, family shareholders’ involvement and control on the board, and the implications of the agency problem. Therefore, the association between CGM and FFs’ performance is not null. This study examined the relationships between board features and FFs’ performance, by performing meta-analysis of 47 recent empirical studies in varying contextual settings. Though, results indicated that several board features have significant impact on FFs’ performance, variations in their strength and direction were reported in two contextual settings: country culture and legal origin of the firm. Our results provide concrete suggestions for equipping the board with suitable attributes to enhance FFs' performance. This study explains why managers should consider the contextual settings while deciding about the board structure of FFs