Relationship Conflict, Family Name Congruence, and Socioemotional Wealth in Family Firms

Abstract

We investigate how family relationship conflict and family and firm name congruence influence subjective firm valuations by family firm owner-managers. Drawing on the socioemotional wealth perspective, behavioral agency theory and mixed gamble reasonings, we hypothesize and find a U-shaped association between relationship conflict inside the family firm and subjective firm valuation. While we do not find a direct effect between name congruence and subjective firm valuation, we show that name congruence interacts with relationship conflict to affect valuations in a complex fashion. Implications and contributions of our findings are discussed.