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Business group affiliation and firm performance in a transition economy: A focus on ownership voids

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Abstract

In a transition economy, how does business group affiliation make a difference in firm performance? Under the broad label of institutional voids, what specific voids can business groups fill? This paper addresses these questions by drawing on insights from property rights theory and an institutional perspective. We argue that ownership voids, as a subset of institutional voids, occur due to the lack of unambiguously specified ownership of state assets in transition economies, and that business groups emerge to serve as the direct owners of state-owned enterprises to replace such voids. Based on a sample of 1,119 publicly-listed Chinese companies, we find that the interaction of business group affiliation and state ownership has a significant and positive effect on firm performance. Our findings point to business group’s substitution role in filling ownership voids in China’s transition economy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business Policy Department, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore, 1 Business Link, Singapore, 117592, Singapore

    Xufei Ma

  2. Organization and Management Department, School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, 28 West Xianning Road, Xi’an, 710049, Shaanxi Province, China

    Xiaotao Yao & Youmin Xi

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  1. Xufei Ma
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  2. Xiaotao Yao
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Correspondence to Xufei Ma.

Additional information

We thank Editors Mike Peng and Andrew Delios, the anonymous APJM reviewer, and the participants of APJM Special Issue Conference on Conglomerates and Business Groups in Asia-Pacific for helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. This research is supported by three grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 70472035, No. 70202003, and No. 7012001).

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Ma, X., Yao, X. & Xi, Y. Business group affiliation and firm performance in a transition economy: A focus on ownership voids. Asia Pacific J Manage 23, 467–483 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-006-9011-6

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