Purpose

This paper seeks to analyze the family firm's capital structure decisions, focusing on the speed of adjustment (SOA) as well as on the effect of distance from the target capital structure on the SOA towards target short-term and long-term debt ratios in unlisted small and medium-sized family firms.

Design/methodology/approach

Methodologically, we use dynamic panel data estimators to estimate the effects of distance on the speeds of adjustment towards those targets. Data for the period 2006–2014 were collected for two research sub-samples: one sub-sample with 398 family firms; the other sub-sample contains 217 non-family firms.

Findings

The results show that the deviation from the target debt ratios impacts negatively on the speeds of adjustment towards target short-term and long-term debt ratios in unlisted family firms. These results suggest that family firms, deviating from target debt ratios, face deviation costs, i.e. insolvency costs, inferior to the adjustment costs, i.e. transaction costs. Therefore, family firms stay away from the target debt ratios for a long time than do non-family firms.

Research limitations/implications

The research sample comprises a low number of family firms, therefore for future research we suggest increasing the size of the sample of family firms to get a deeper understanding of family firms' SOA towards capital structure. Additionally, we suggest the analysis of other potential determinants of the speed of adjustment towards target capital structure.

Practical implications

The results obtained suggest that the distance from the target short-term and long-term debt ratios can be avoided if these firms do not depend almost exclusively on internal finance to adjust towards target capital structure. Moreover, for policymakers, we suggest the creation/promotion of alternative external finance sources, allowing reduced transaction costs that contribute to a faster adjustment of small family firms towards target capital structure.

Originality/value

The most previous research focusing on capital structure decisions have focused on listed family firms. To fill this gap, this study examines the speed of adjustment towards target debt ratios in the context of unlisted family firms. Moreover, transaction costs are a function of debt maturity, therefore this study examines separately the speeds of adjustment towards target short-term and long-term debt ratios. This paper shows that the adjustment costs (i.e. transaction costs) could hold back family firms from rebalancing its capital structure.

中文翻译：

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西班牙非上市家族企业如何重新平衡其资本结构？

目的

本文旨在分析家族企业的资本结构决策，重点关注调整速度（SOA）以及与目标资本结构的距离对 SOA 对非上市公司目标短期和长期债务比率的影响。中小型家族企业。

设计/方法/方法

在方法论上，我们使用动态面板数据估计器来估计距离对这些目标调整速度的影响。为两个研究子样本收集了 2006-2014 年的数据：一个包含 398 家家族企业的子样本；另一个子样本包含 217 家非家族企业。

发现

结果表明，偏离目标负债率对非上市家族企业向目标短期和长期负债率的调整速度产生负面影响。这些结果表明，偏离目标负债率的家族企业面临的偏离成本，即破产成本，低于调整成本，即交易成本。因此，家族企业比非家族企业长期远离目标负债率。

研究限制/影响

研究样本中的家族企业数量较少，因此对于未来的研究，我们建议增加家族企业样本的规模，以更深入地了解家族企业的 SOA 对资本结构的影响。此外，我们建议分析调整目标资本结构速度的其他潜在决定因素。

实际影响

获得的结果表明，如果这些公司不几乎完全依赖内部融资来调整目标资本结构，则可以避免与目标短期和长期债务比率的差距。此外，对于政策制定者，我们建议创建/促进替代外部融资来源，从而降低交易成本，从而有助于小型家族企业更快地向目标资本结构调整。

原创性/价值

以往关注资本结构决策的研究大多集中在上市家族企业。为了填补这一空白，本研究考察了在未上市家族企业背景下调整目标债务比率的速度。此外，交易成本是债务到期的函数，因此本研究分别考察了向目标短期和长期债务比率调整的速度。本文表明，调整成本（即交易成本）可能会阻碍家族企业重新平衡其资本结构。