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Manuscript Type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: We examine the relationship between corporate governance and firm value, and evaluate the relatively understudied governance practices in Venezuela. Research Findings/Results: We construct a corporate governance index (CGI) for publicly-listed firms that is free of self-selection and self-reported bias and find that its mean value is below the emerging market average in general, and below the Latin American average in particular. This weak investor protection environment makes Venezuela a good setting to study how corporate governance practices affect firm value. We show that an increase of 1 per cent in the CGI results in an average increase of 11.3 per cent in dividend payouts, 9.9 per cent in price-to-book, and 2.7 per cent in Tobin's Q. These findings are robust after considering the potential endogeneity of our regression variables. Theoretical Implications: Results contrast to those reported in the US due to the higher interfirm variations in CGI. Our findings are consistent with the theoretical models that relate good corporate governance practices to higher investor confidence, and with the agency model of dividend payout. Furthermore, we conjecture that our results are generalizable mainly to other countries where investor protection is low. Practical Implications: Two direct insights to policy makers and practitioners follow from our analysis: first, managers in weak investor protection environments could differentiate their firms adopting corporate policies to improve their governance structure; and second, our measure of governance practices gives investors a quantitative tool to better assess Venezuelan firms.

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This article examines the effects of family involvement on dividend policy in closely held firms that face agency problems involving majority–minority shareholders. We argue that minority shareholders press for dividends when they perceive situations fostering wealth expropriation. Looking at 458 Colombian companies, we find that family involvement in management does not affect dividend policy; family involvement in both ownership and control through pyramids affects dividend policy negatively; and family involvement in control through disproportionate board representation affects dividend policy positively. Thus, family influence on agency problems, and hence on dividend policy as a mitigating mechanism, varies depending on family involvement.

In this study, using a unique hand-collected sample of 523 closely held Colombian family firms and 5.094 firm-year observations, with 4907 board members, including 833 female board members, we show that female directors have a negative effect on firm performance. However, when we separate female directors into two groups, family female directors and outside female directors, we find that the latter has a positive and significant effect on firm performance. We further construct a human capital index after a detailed analysis of 15% of the total curriculum vitae of directors for those in our sample we were able to find. Although the subsample is not representative enough to make general claims for the whole sample due to data constraints, we shed some light about a potential gender bias in the development of the human capital of heirs and the corresponding impact of different levels of directors' education and experience on firms' financial performance.

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Manuscript Type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: We analyze CEO turnover in closely held firms with some level of ownership dispersion in a context of low investor protection. In particular, we examine the impact of family involvement on CEO turnover and CEO turnover/performance sensitivity. We argue that family involvement in management, ownership, and control has both a direct effect on CEO turnover from the family presence itself, and a moderating effect over CEO turnover/performance sensitivity attributable to the agency tensions between majority and minority shareholders (whether other family blocks or non-family shareholders). Research Findings/Insights: Using data from 1996-2006 for 523 Colombian firms, we find direct and moderating effects, depending on the type of family involvement. Family involvement in management and boards reduces CEO turnover, but family involvement in ownership increases it. Regarding moderating effects, family involvement in ownership reduces CEO turnover/performance sensitivity, while the opposite occurs with family directors. Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our results show that closely held firms in emerging markets exhibit a strong negative CEO turnover/performance sensitivity, which is a somewhat counterintuitive result, and also contribute to a better understanding of agency conflicts within family firms by highlighting the different ways families affect CEO turnover. Practitioner/Policy Implications: Our findings suggest that even benevolently entrenched family CEOs are not immune to poor financial performance. Families that are majority or controlling shareholders may support CEOs even when the firm performs poorly because of potential benefits from control. Family boards are very sensitive to financial performance even when the CEO is a family member. The Classical Relationship between CEO Turnover and Firm PerformanceAnalyzing CEO turnover and its relation to firm performance is one way to assess the quality of corporate governance at the firm level. According to Coffee (1999), a successful system of corporate governance penalizes managers who deliver poor financial performance. This premise has been extensively tested and confirmed in the financial literature on large listed firms -those in the United States among others).We argue that this disciplinary mechanism also applies in closely held family firms with some level of ownership dispersion, but with a differentiated effect depending on the type of family involvement. In spite of not being subject to 267 Studies of corporate ownership highlight structures that influence CEO turnover. For example, Denis, Denis, and Sarin (1997) find CEO turnover is negatively related to ownership concentration by insiders. Volpin (2002) finds the FIGURE 1 Theoretical Framework 269