Manuscript Type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: This paper empirically tests how founders and their families affect business segment diversification. We contribute to the literature by studying the distinct effects of family ownership, management, and supervision on diversification strategies. Research Findings/Insights: We use a large panel dataset of listed German firms. Our results indicate a sharp contrast between firms owned by families and those in which the family holds an active management position. Firms owned by families have higher levels of diversification. However, the opposite is true for firms managed by families. Furthermore, other large shareholders perform a monitoring role and induce family owners to concentrate on their core business. Theoretical/Academic Implications: This paper clearly confirms that family firms comprise a heterogeneous group of firms. Thus, empirical research in this area should carefully distinguish the impact of different channels (i.e., management vs. ownership) families may use to influence corporate decision making. For diversification decisions, we can even show that family ownership and management have an opposite impact. Founding families have to trade off the desire to preserve financial wealth (via diversification) with the risk of losing control and endangering their socioemotional wealth (SEW). Practitioner/Policy Implications: For policy makers, our results underline that family firms are not a homogeneous group of firms. Hence, it is important to consider their heterogeneity in the political discussion. For example, needs and preferences of family managed firms may differ substantially from those of family owned firms. Equity investors and debt providers should also be aware of this family firm heterogeneity.
Soft landing of mass selected clusters in rare gas matrices is a technique used to preserve mass selection in cluster deposition. To prevent fragmentation upon deposition, the substrate is covered with rare gas matrices to dissipate the cluster kinetic energy upon impact. Theoretical and experimental studies demonstrate the power of this technique. Besides STM, optical absorption, excitation, and fluorescence experiments, x-ray absorption at core levels can be used as a tool to study soft landing conditions, as will be shown here. X-ray absorption spectroscopy is also well suited to follow diffusion and agglomeration of clusters on surfaces via energy shifts in core level absorption.
A versatile cluster source has been developed for the deposition and investigation of mass selected metal clusters on single crystal substrates under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. The cluster deposition experiment is designed for spectroscopy with synchrotron radiation to probe the properties of mass selected clusters in x-ray absorption, x-ray magnetic circular dichroism, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The experimental setup consists of three stages, and is based on a sputter source for cluster production, a magnetic dipole field for mass selection, and an ultrahigh vacuum chamber for cluster deposition. With this cluster source, metal clusters of up to 40 atoms per cluster can be produced, mass separated and deposited onto a substrate. In this size range, cluster current densities of 20pAmm−2–10nAmm−2 have been determined experimentally, depending on cluster material and size. For substrate preparation, the experimental chamber is fully equipped with standard surface science tools. Cluster yields are presented for a variety of sputter targets. The capability to produce truly size-selected clusters is demonstrated with mass spectra.
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