Family involvement and corporate social responsibility disclosure

Building on the socioemotional wealth perspective, we hypothesize that family control and influence increase CSR disclosure. However, our results contradict this prediction: Panel data analyses for a sample of Spanish non-financial listed companies suggest that both family ownership and/or family governance have a negative influence on firms' commitment to CSR reporting, but the presence of a second significant shareholder may moderate this negative effect. Additionally, the identity of the second significant shareholder seems to matter: Foreign investors may reduce the negative influence of family ownership, but other families may increase the negative impact of family governance, and of the combined effect of family ownership and governance, on CSR disclosure. We discuss implications for future theory development and research.