Firm Performance During Oil Price Shocks: Norwegian Oil & Shipping Family and Non-Family Firms

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to deepen the understanding of the family firm performance compared to non-family owned companies in times of oil price shocks of 2010-2015 with period of high oil prices followed by low prices. This paper complements the already existing literature that still provides quite contradictive results as to whether family firms perform better or worse than non-family owned companies in shocks. The focus of the research are the oil and shipping companies in Norway exposed the most to the oil price volatilities. We discover that while oil and shipping companies' performance is related positively to oil price shocks, other industries on average react negatively to oil price increases. Further, we find some limited evidence that family firms in these industries are less affected by the shock and experience a less volatile performance in times of oil price shocks, which could be a result of long term horizons, lower agency problems and better relations with debt holders. However, we did not find evidence to support the hypothesis that a significant oil price fall of 2014 affected family firms differently. Overall, our study reveals that there might be a certain benefit of being a family firm when oil price shocks hit, particularly for larger firms, but the positive effects are limited and require further investigation.