Capital structure in family firms: the role of innovation activity and institutional investors

Purpose– There is still an ongoing debate on the value relevance of capital structure and its determinants. Recently the issue has been explored in family firms after being explored in mature firms. This paper investigates the role of institutional investors and the firm’s innovation activity in influencing the firm’s decision and ability to acquire debt capital. Design/methodology/approach– A large sample of 700 privately-held family firms in Italy from 2010 to 2019. Twoanalysis techniques are used: panel analysis and path analysis. The value of debt and the debt ratio are usedasleveragemeasures.Thevalueofpatent(asaproxyforinnovation)andinstitutionalinvestorarethe explanatory variables. Findings–Theresultsshowthatinstitutionalinvestorshavenorelationshipwithfinancialleveragemeasures except when controlling for an interaction variable (Institutional investors 3 Lombardy region). The patent value is positively correlated with debt; however, the ratio patent-to-asset is negatively related to financial leverage indicating higher risk exposure. The nonlinearity test demonstrates a turning point when the relationship between patent value and debt inverts. Practical implications– Firms should monitor their innovation activity since excessive innovation increases risk exposure and affects financing opportunities and value. The involvement of institutional investors does not always enhance value. Originality/value– Existing literature focuses separately on family firm innovations and financial leverage as outcome variables, emphasizing the role of institutional investors in both fields by adopting agency theory and socioemotional wealth framework. In this study, the authors go further by merging both relationships, investigating the dynamics of the institutional-family firm innovation relationship in influencing the firm’s capital structure. The authors contribute to the ongoing debate by providing original findings on capital structure, governance and innovation, supported by rigorous methods to enhance family firms’ decisionmaking.