Vermögensmanagement in großen Unternehmerfamilien: Zwischen individuellem Anspruch und kollektiver Verantwortung

Zusammenfassung In großen, mehrgenerationalen Unternehmerfamilien ist ein zentrales Thema des Familienmanagements die Regulierung des Umgangs mit dem Vermögen, die Regulierung von Verkaufsabsichten und die Unterstützung der vielen Gesellschafter bei Vermögensfragen. In der Forschung wurden dafür sieben große deutsche Familienunternehmen (zwischen 80 und 650 Gesellschafter) untersucht. Diese Gesellschafterkreise lassen sich theoretisch weniger als Familien, sondern eher als Fami­liennetzwerke rekonstruieren (Unternehmerfamilien 3.0). Die Fragen nach dem Umgang mit Vermögen zeigten vier Spannungsfelder, die sehr unterschiedlich gehandhabt werden. Abstract In large business families with several generations a central topic of the family management is the regulation of family firm assets, individual benefits and support for the large group of shareholders concerning individually and collectively held assets. Seven large German family firms (between 80 and 650 shareholders) have been analyzed. These groups of shareholders could be theoretical reconstructed less than families, but rather as family networks (business families 3.0). The questions of wealth management showed four areas of tension, which are handled completely different.

Voluntary disclosure reduces agency conflicts: an empirical analysis of Italian listed companies with substantial intangible assets

R&D assets cause information asymmetries between shareholders and managers. In order to reduce such information asymmetries, our aim is to learn what typologies of additional information managers find it opportune to disclosure voluntarily in annual reports. We consider voluntary information which can be disclosed about strategy as well as that about R&D assets. Our analysis, which is conducted on a panel of 195 observations, shows that information about R&D is more useful to investors than information about strategy, but companies obtain greater benefits from providing information about strategy because they are more useful to other important stakeholders, such as lenders, bondholders, suppliers and others. For firms whose value is largely composed of assets such as R&D, management faces higher future uncertainty in transforming firm assets into revenues. This increases the utility for investors and other stakeholders of knowing the strategy management intends to anticipate and deal with eventual changes in the environment.