Abstract: The intergenerational succession of Chinese family enterprises is entering a peak period. The intergenerational succession is a key characteristic that distinguishes family enterprises from general public companies, and it is also the main way for family social emotional wealth to continue across generations. The intergenerational succession is both complex and scarce. A reasonable intergenerational succession arrangement can help family enterprises to smoothly complete the handover of control and reduce the loss of corporate value in the succession stage. However, the unique agency problem and control transfer risk of family enterprises expose them to greater uncertainty in the intergenerational succession stage.
Existing research has extensively examined the asset allocation patterns and strategic change tendencies of family enterprises in the intergenerational inheritance stage based on the above perspectives, but these studies generally focus on the discussion of heterogeneous investment and strategy, and fail to answer the questions of investment patterns and efficiency arising from the intergenerational succession.
This paper focuses on how family intergenerational succession affects corporate investment efficiency. It is found that family intergenerational succession significantly improves corporate investment efficiency, and mainly limits excessive investment. Further analysis reveals that the promotion effect of family intergenerational succession on corporate investment efficiency is more obvious in the stage of father-son co-governance and when the duration of co-governance is longer. The intergenerational succession of the family improves the investment efficiency level of the enterprise by promoting the control structure of excess director appointment in the family enterprise.
The incremental contributions of this paper are as follows: Firstly, it enriches the research on the economic consequences of intergenerational succession of family enterprises from the perspective of control rights, analyzes various agency issues faced by family enterprises in the intergenerational succession stage,and deepens the relevant understanding of the social emotional wealth theory. Secondly, it expands the research on investment efficiency at the governance level of family enterprises, supplementing it with non-economic factors from the intergenerational succession, which is a necessary supplement to the research on investment efficiency in real-life situations.

Key words: Intergenerational Succession, Investment Efficiency, Control Structure, Father-son Co-governance, Family Business

摘要： 中国家族企业代际传承正迎来高峰。代际传承对投资效率的影响是关乎家族企业远期发展和竞争优势构建的重要问题,体现了家族企业在发展目标和理论适用上的独特之处。本文采用2012—2019年中国家族上市公司样本,实证检验了家族代际传承对企业投资效率的影响。研究发现,家族代际传承显著提升了企业投资效率,且主要限制了过度投资。进一步分析发现,家族代际传承对企业投资效率的促进作用在父子共治阶段和共治时长较长时更加明显。家族代际传承通过促进家族超额董事委派的控制权结构提升了企业投资效率。

关键词: 代际传承, 投资效率, 控制权结构, 父子共治, 家族企业