In the Horns of the Dilemma: Socioemotional Wealth, Financial Wealth, and Acquisitions in Family Firms
研究家族企业在并购决策中面临的社会情感财富与财务财富权衡，发现家族控制导致并购意愿低且偏好相关目标，但企业脆弱性增加时会更优先考虑财务财富，从而收购不相关目标。
We posit that family firms often face a dilemma in their strategic decision making: whether to maintain current socioemotional wealth or pursue prospective financial wealth. Applying such a mixed gamble perspective to acquisitions, family owners assess potential acquisitions with regard to their impact on both wealth dimensions. In line with this reasoning, our results show that family control implies a general reluctance to acquire and, when an acquisition happens, a preference for related targets. Because financial and socioemotional viewpoints lead to largely incompatible predictions about the occurrence and relatedness of acquisitions, family firm owners use their firm’s vulnerability as a signal. Increased vulnerability leads to a heightened propensity to prioritize financial over socioemotional wealth problem framing, which is reflected in the acquisition of unrelated targets. Empirical results are supportive of these predictions.