Controllo familiare e performance di efficienza delle imprese italiane

The control structure of Italian firms may seem anomalous when compared with that of most industrialized countries, because of the strong presence of family control (Bianchi et al., 2005). In fact, evidence on listed companies (La Porta et al., 1999, Faccio and Lang, 2002), shows that the concentration of ownership is a common phenomenon all over the world. In the U.S., family businesses with large capitalization, included in the S&P 500 index, represent 35% of total market capitalization (Anderson and Reeb, 2003). Family firm may seem a better form of organization than public company, as evidenced by several studies on international listed companies (Anderson and Reeb, 2003, with reference to the American context; Barontini and Caprio, 2006, for 11 European countries, Sraer and Thesmar, 2007, for France, Favero et al., 2006, for Italy). On the contrary, Morck et al. (2000) point out unfavorable performance of family compared to non-family firms for the Canadian case. Recent works by Amit and Villalonga (2006) and Perez-Gonzalez (2001) on large listed companies in the United States, reveal superior performance when the CEO or president of the family is their founder compared to the case in which such charge is covered by a descendant. In any case, the literature shows a prevalence of the superiority of the family firm, at least until the founder is actively involved in it (Barontini and Caprio, 2006). The methodological approach usually used to test the role of family control consists in determining the performance in terms of profitability, as deduced from the balance sheets and measured by return on invested capital, or as reflected by the stock market valuation and quantified by Tobin's Q. The samples also typically involve listed companies. The reason why family firms would be more successful than non family firms is still quite unexplored. Emotional instead of purely rational aspects should induce the manager-owner to focus on long-term strategies and preserve the survival of the firm (Gomez-Mejia et al., 2001). Similarly, the work of Sraer and Thesmar (2007) on French firms identifies not purely economic variables to explain the differences in profitability and value of family and non family firms and confirms the better performance of the latter even when the founder’s successors are managers themselves. A crucial element is the reduced remuneration of workers and managers, no matter whether they are descendants or non-family professionals. Low wages are exchanged with a relationship of trust that guarantees job stability and employment in the long term. The phenomenon is particularly evident in the Italian case, where the reduced cost of labor may be synonymous of low value added and low productivity, as often happens in mature industries and less advanced sectors. This work aims at verifying, through the use of Data Envelopment Analysis, the existence of differences in efficiency between family and non-family firms, isolating the real components, related to the comparison between input and output, from the “allocative” ones, related to the choice of the optimal mix of inputs in light of the price of factors. In particular, relevance will be given to the first aspect only. Obviously, the comparison must be realized within each sector of activity, in consideration of the technological heterogeneity of firms operating in different sectors, and must lead to disentangle the efficiency related to the scale of production from the efficiency induced by the management characteristics.