Family ties and firm performance empirical evidence from East Asia*

We investigate the impact of family ties on the performance of family firms in East Asia. To measure family ties, we used both objective and subjective indicators from the World Value Survey. Our findings indicate that family firms that are nurtured in a society with strong family ties tend to have better performance compared to family firms that operate in a culture with weak family ties. Furthermore, family firms that have strong familial relationships are more likely to gain a competitive advantage over nonfamily firms. Conversely, family firms with weak ties tend to underperform nonfamily firms. Our results are robust across various measures of firm performance, classifications of family firm, considerations of heteroskedasticity and endogeneity, and different econometric methods.