Family Ownership, Corporate Governance and Performance: Evidence from Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to examine the performance of companies listed in the Saudi Stock Exchange. For this purpose, we studied and tested a sample of 792 firm-years among from 11 industrial groups for the years 2006 to 2013 and compared Family and Non-family firms. The research addresses the questions 1) Do family owned firms perform better? 2) How does concentration of ownership affect firm performance, comparing family firms to non-family ones? This research attempts to fill a research gap on the relationship or determinants of capital structure in one of the emerging markets, Saudi Arabia. This study will be implemented through a quantitative approach. Secondary data were obtained from published annual statistical data, from the company financial reports and the DataStream database.