The impact of Family Assets on Corporate Structures and Outcomes (FAMBUSS)

Ownermanaged and family enterprises are the most common types of corporations in the world and differ significantly from non-family enterprises in organizational form, firm dynamics and corporate performance.

While there is a growing understanding of the importance of the differential performance between family and non-family businesses, there is still little systematic knowledge about why family firms are different. For example, what is the relationship between family contributions and innovation? Does a family firm have a different internal organization? Is there a link between family values and leadership style? These are major research questions that have the potential to change our understanding of and improve performance and growth for the most typical firm in the world.

The novel data have provided opportunities to answer many new research questions, including:

1) The link between family assets and innovation. This would be the first systematic empirical study of how family assets impact innovation.

2) The link between family assets and implicit labor contracts which would provide novel insights into the internal organization and labor incentives in owner managed firms.

3) The link between family assets and leadership and outcome in firms. This would be the first systematic study based on large scale data of how personal and family values affect leadership style and its impact on organizational structure and outcome.

4) The link between family assets and mergers and acquisitions.

Read also the introduction to this Niels Bohr Professorship in the Annual Report from The Danish National Research Foundation.

Read about related research projects in the FAMBUSS group below. 

COVID19 research: Crisis management in Danish companies

Niels Bohr Professor Morten Bennedsen received a grant from The Independent Research Foundation Denmark and a grant from The Danish Industry Foundation (GenstartNU) to investigate the consequences of the corona crisis on Danish firms. 

The project objectives

Beyond being a major health crisis, the corona crisis was the largest negative shock we have seen to business the last 100 years. We mapped the consequence through a 2 part survey sent out to all active firms in Denmark with 3+ employees. We mapped impact on employment, estimated of business survival depending on the length of the crisis, business liquidity, financial challenges, and the use and effect of government programs aimed at supporting business during the crisis.

Our first contribution was to map these consequences and provide a platform to which we could understand how severe the situation was and what business could do to minimize the cost.

Read the research paper 'Preserving job matches during the COVID-19 pandemic: firm-level evidence on the role of government aid'.

The first results from the survey was published in June 2020 and covered by among other The Economist, Børsen, Berlingske, Fagbladet 3F, RITZAU, TV2 and DR.

Our second contribution was to combine the survey with register data to investigate what characterized resilient firms: How firm organization, firm type, management practice and leadership style interacted with business performance during crisis.

Our third contribution was to evaluate the use and effectiveness of government programs to help business during crisis. 

Research team

• Morten Bennedsen, Niels Bohr Professor, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen
• Frederik Plum Hauschultz, Postdoc , Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen
• Daniela Scur, Assistant Professor, Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University
• Birthe Larsen, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School
• Ian M. Schmutte, Assistant Professor, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia