Manuscript Type Empirical Research Question/Issue From an agency perspective, we investigate whether family ownership and control configurations are systematically associated with a firm's choice of auditor. Our analysis focuses on three different characteristics of family ownership and control: family ownership (cash flow rights), disparity between cash flow and voting rights held by family owners (cash–vote divergence), and the family identities of CEOs. Research Findings/Insights Our findings suggest that different family ownership and control configurations lead to different agency effects. The alignment effect prevails in family firms with greater family ownership, founder CEOs, and professional CEOs, whereas the entrenchment effect prevails when there is greater cash–vote divergence. Despite the presence of two distinct types of agency effects, regardless of differences in family ownership and control configurations, none of these firms is inclined to appoint higher‐quality auditors. Theoretical/Academic Implications This study advances our understanding of the varied agency effects arising from family ownership, cash–vote divergence, and the family identities of CEOs, as well as the impact of family ownership and control features on auditor choice. Our empirical evidence provides a unique insight, showing that higher‐quality auditors do not tend to be appointed in firms where family alignment with outside investors is relatively strong, as this lowers demand for such auditors. In addition, although family entrenchment may create greater outside investor demand for higher‐quality auditors, such demand is difficult to realize. Practitioner/Policy Implications Auditors are an important external governance mechanism. This study offers insights for policymakers, family owners, auditors, and other capital market participants, with regard to the varied effects of different family ownership and control features on auditor choice.

This study investigates whether a company's founders affect the combination of executive, grey and independent directors on its board at the time of initial public offering (IPO) in the UK. Particularly, we analyse how venture capitalists are associated with board structure in founder-managed and non-founder-managed firms. We find that UK IPO firms managed by founders tend to have more executive directors. Further, they are more likely to stack non-executive directors with more independent directors relative to grey directors. Venture capital ownership is not significantly associated with board structure at the IPO stage. However, further evidence suggests that venture capital ownership is negatively related to the percentage of executive directors and positively related to the percentage of grey directors in the founder-managed firms.

This study investigates how variations in family ownership configurations and family identity of the CEO affect family firms' accounting conservatism in the East Asian economy, Taiwan.To address this objective, this study extends the traditional agency perspective and employs a socioemotional wealth framework. Findings document that family ownership is positively associated with family firms' accounting conservatism, whereas the degree of disparity between family cash flow and voting rights is negatively related to accounting conservatism.Additionally, family firms with a founder CEO are more likely to report conservatively than those with a descendent CEO. Our study expands the growing literature on how family owners' corporate governance features affect financial reporting decisions.