Economic crisis and ownership structure: Evidence from an emerging market

Abstract

It is generally assumed that the corporations in emerging markets are more sensitive to financial distress arising from global crisis than their counterparts in developed countries because of a lower level of institutionalization and governance structure. Parent companies need to build effective corporate governance to overcome the effects of a global economic crisis, considering the drawbacks of an emerging market. The study aims to understand the relation between the capital structure of ultimate parent companies with corporate performance of the affiliates in an emerging market, Turkey, for the period between 2008-2013. The paper divides this period into a pre-economic crisis period of 2008-2010 and a post-economic crisis period of 2011-2013. The ANOVA results revealed that business group affiliates had a higher financial performance and firm value and were more innovative compared to the non-Affiliates. The regression analysis showed that the degree of control of the group by the affiliated firm was positively associated with firm value for both the years of crisis and those of recovery periods. The analysis also posits that professionalism in management was positively associated with the affiliates' value in recovery periods. Innovativeness was another variable which contributed positively to value.