What do Middle-Sized Family Firms Really Look Like ?

Stéphane Gregoir, Florencio López-de-Silanes: Middle-sized firms play a fundamental role in the French economy in terms of value added, employment, growth and innovation.

Author(s):

Stephane Gregoir

Was Professor of Economics and Research Director at EDHEC Business School when this paper began. He is an economist and econometrician and he is now Director of Methodology at INSEE (National Institute of Statistics and Economics Studies of France).

Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes

Professor of Finance and Law and Scientific Director of the Family Business Centre at EDHEC Business School.

However, little is known on their corporate ownership and governance structures. In this paper, we attempt to fill in the void of empirical evidence on ownership, management and corporate governance structures of French middle-sized firms through the design and implementation of a survey of family and non-family-controlled firms. The survey was designed by EDHEC Business School and carried out by trained experts form IPSOS. Our analysis sheds light on the main differences between family-controlled firms and other middle-sized non-family firms, as well as among family firms under different types of management.