Abstract

The agency problem strikes as an ethical, practical, and economic issue in equal measures. The principal objective of the current research is to trace the nature of the agency conflicts in the family-owned pyramidal business groups of corporate Malaysia and how they affect the firm value. It is argued that the principal͐–principal (PP) conflict is more severe in family-owned business firms. To achieve the objectives of the current study, the GMM and the fixed effect estimates are used. In addition, to find the difference between family-owned firms and family-owned firms in the pyramidal business, we have employed the Mann–Whitney test. The null hypothesis is accepted which indicates that the impact of the PP conflict among family firms is different from those in pyramidal business groups. The final sample of 420 firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia is chosen for the analysis. The results of the current study provide support to the hypothesized results that the PP conflict is severe in family-owned groups and has a significant effect on firm value. The findings of the current study also provide support that the PP conflict is prevalent in Malaysia, supporting the earlier evidence regarding the expropriation of minority shareholders rights reported in the studies carried out on samples of Malaysian non-financial firms. This is also in line with our measure of PP conflict severity, which is high in pyramidal family firms. Overall, the results provided support to the expropriation hypothesis. Thus, the findings of this study also confirm the view that in family-owned Malaysian firms, the ethical dilemmas of wealth expropriations do exist and are more intense in the pyramidal family-owned business structures. Instead of relying on traditional methods, the current study employed a synthetic measure to gauge the PP conflict. The study which is among the pioneer on the expropriation of minority shareholders will be helpful for policymakers, researchers and finance professionals in understanding the issues related to principal-principal conflict, and firm value in family-owned pyramidal business groups of Malaysia.

摘要

代理问题作为一个道德、实践和经济问题在同等程度上引起了人们的注意。当前研究的主要目标是追踪马来西亚企业家族金字塔式企业集团中代理冲突的性质以及它们如何影响公司价值。有人认为，委托人-委托人 (PP) 冲突在家族企业中更为严重。为了实现当前研究的目标，使用了 GMM 和固定效应估计。此外，为了找出金字塔式企业中家族企业和家族企业之间的差异，我们采用了 Mann-Whitney 检验。零假设被接受，这表明家族企业之间的 PP 冲突的影响不同于金字塔企业集团中的影响。选择在马来西亚交易所上市的 420 家公司的最终样本进行分析。当前研究的结果支持了假设的结果，即家族企业的 PP 冲突很严重，并且对公司价值有显着影响。当前研究的结果还支持 PP 冲突在马来西亚普遍存在，这支持了在对马来西亚非金融公司样本进行的研究中报告的有关征用少数股东权利的早期证据。这也符合我们对 PP 冲突严重程度的衡量，这在金字塔家族企业中很高。总体而言，结果支持征收假说。因此，这项研究的结果也证实了这样的观点，即在马来西亚的家族企业中，财富征用的道德困境确实存在，而且在金字塔式家族企业结构中更为严重。当前的研究没有依赖传统方法，而是采用综合措施来衡量 PP 冲突。这项研究是征用少数股东的先驱之一，将有助于政策制定者、研究人员和金融专业人士了解与马来西亚家族企业金字塔式企业集团的主要-主要冲突和公司价值相关的问题。