Governance and Performance of Family Firms and Non-family Firms in Japan: A Comparative Study

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18H00901
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 07080:Business administration-related
• Research Institution: Kwansei Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: KOJIMA Koji 関西学院大学, 国際学部, 教授 (80388727)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 忽那 憲治 神戸大学, 経営学研究科, 教授 (00275273) ; 菅原 智 関西学院大学, 商学部, 教授 (40331839) ; ADHIKARY B.K. 同志社大学, ビジネス研究科, 准教授 (40512976)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: family business / performance / corporate governance / Japan

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The achievements of the research projects can be summarized in three parts: 1. Academic publications including journal articles and books on family firms, 2. Cases of Japanese family firms, and 3. Database of family firms. For academic publications, we publish papers on Japanese traditional family firms in the service industry, comparative analyses between listed family and non-family firms, the relationship between family firms and finance research, and a book on family business and academics. For cases of Japanese family firms, we visited various family firms in Japan in the service industry and wrote cases about their strategies, unique features and etc. Lastly, we created a database for listed family firms in Japan that include corporate governance and financial variables for future analysis.

Free Research Field

経営学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

日本は多くの歴史あるファミリービジネスを擁するファミリービジネス大国であるが、ファミリービジネスという形態は、否定的な文脈で用いられることが多い。研究成果が明らかにしたことは、ファミリービジネスの形態が必ずしも古臭くなく、企業業績に対しても、企業存続の永続性に関しても、ポジティブな影響を及ぼしている可能性である。また、多くのファミリービジネスの経営者とのインタビューや訪問調査を通じて、その強みと可能性について改めて確認することができた。