Famdata: Database for family business companies in Germany covering company key figures and survey data

Garnitz, Johanna; von Maltzan, Annette; Wohlrabe, Klaus Article Famdata: Database for family business companies in Germany covering company key figures and survey data Journal of Economics and Statistics Provided in Cooperation with: De Gruyter Brill Suggested Citation: Garnitz, Johanna; von Maltzan, Annette; Wohlrabe, Klaus (2025) : Famdata: Database for family business companies in Germany covering company key figures and survey data, Journal of Economics and Statistics, ISSN 2366-049X, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin, Vol. 245, Iss. 1/2, pp. 235-246, https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2023-0056 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/333311 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Data Observer Johanna Garnitz*, Annette von Maltzan and Klaus Wohlrabe FamData: Database for Family Business Companies in Germany Covering Company Key Figures and Survey Data https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2023-0056 Received August 4, 2023; accepted August 6, 2023 Abstract: FamData is a database covering family businesses and non-family businesses across various size classes and branches containing structural and financial information. The ifo institute assembled a business panel with executives from almost 4000 companies. In addition to the “hard”business data like turnover and number of employees, the database also includes “soft”survey data. The latter one covers information from regular –at least yearly –surveys treating topics like investment behavior, skilled labor shortage or reaction of firms during the Corona pandemic situation and the rise in energy prices observed in 2022. Keywords: family businesses; micro data; surveys JEL Classification: C80; C81; C83; D22 1 Introduction and Some Background The private economic sector in Germany is dominated by family businesses (Stiftung Familienunternehmen 2023). More than 90 percent of all German non-public businesses are family businesses (Stiftung Familienunternehmen 2019a). A central aim of research on family businesses is to analyze their characteristics in terms of corporate governance and their impact on entrepreneurial success. A central difference to non-family businesses is the settlement of business succession. The concept of sustainability is of great importance to family businesses, as their owners and managers usually strive to pass on their life’s work within the family (Stiftung *Corresponding author: Johanna Garnitz, ifo Institute –Leibniz-Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich e.V., Poschingerstraße 5, 81679 München, Germany, E-mail: [email protected] Annette von Maltzan and Dr. Klaus Wohlrabe, ifo Institute –Leibniz-Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich e.V., Poschingerstraße 5, 81679 München, Germany, E-mail: [email protected] (A. von Maltzan), [email protected] (K. Wohlrabe). https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5651-2641 (K. Wohlrabe) Journal of Economics and Statistics 2025; 245(1–2): 235–246 Open Access. © 2023 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Familienunternehmen 2019a). Wimmer (2022) states that the decisive difference to the conventional understanding of leadership lies in the fact that at the helm of family businesses are entrepreneurs who gear their entrepreneurial commitment to a long-term time horizon. Thus, the aim is to create something that can be passed on from generation to generation as a special value, a value that provides the family as an entrepreneurial family with its social identity, its economic livelihood and thus its cohesion over long periods of time. This aspect plays a central role in scientific research. The development of the company database FamData with family and non-family businesses is based on this basic idea. The FamData database has been established on behalf of the Stiftung Familienunternehmen as a comprehensive analysis tool. 1 The aim of the database is to map Germany’s diverse business landscape, differentiating between family businesses and non-family businesses. Among other things, it offers the possibility of providing up-to-date and targeted data on the business landscape at short notice. Other issues can be the analysis of structural changes in the German business landscape, the effects of regulation, taxes and other location factors on different forms of business, and on differences in the decision-making and activity of different types and groups of businesses. The database also forms the basis for the project “Unternehmensmonitor der Stiftung Familienunternehmen”and the surveys conducted in this context. The focus is on the so-called “Annual Monitor of the Foundation for Family Businesses” (Jahresmonitor for short), a representative business survey conducted annually by the ifo Institute on current issues, which enables a well-founded analysis of various economic and social developments of family businesses in comparison to non-family businesses. In addition to this extensive annual survey, other shorter business surveys, so-called “mood monitors”, are carried out on current topics such as the development of energy prices or how businesses are dealing with the consequences of the Corona pandemic. The ifo Institute is responsible for developing the research design, organizing, and conducting the surveys, and subsequently analyzing the results. The Foundation for Family Businesses, as client (fully funded), plays a key role in identifying the topics and developing the questionnaires, and has full rights of disposal over the data collected. In addition, FamData serves another central function as the basis for surveys conducted as part of the project “Unternehmensmonitor”of the Foundation for Family Businesses. In addition to the “hard”business data and facts, which are often available with a time lag, “soft”survey-based data are an ideal supplement for a quickly available picture of the mood on certain economic issues and topics. 1The Stiftung Familienunternehmen (Foundation for Family Businesses) is one of the largest promoters of science and research in the field of family business (www.familienunternehmen.de). 236 J. Garnitz et al. Respondents from nearly 4000 companies have agreed to take part in surveys on a regular basis since the start of the project in 2017 and thus form the backbone of the surveys. Response rates vary and reach up to 54 percent. Fundamental to all research in the field of family businesses is the identification of the corresponding family structure. Family businesses are not bound to a certain size in terms of employees or turnover. They can also be found in almost any industry and need not entertain a specific legal form (Stiftung Familienunternehmen 2023). So, what is a family business? In scientific research and in the general public there is no definitive single answer in the form of a unique definition. According to the Foundation for Family Businesses (Stiftung Familienunternehmen 2023) a company of any size is a family business if: (1) The majority of decision-making rights is in the possession of the natural person(s) who established the company, or in the possession of the natural person(s) who has/have acquired the share capital of the company, or in the possession of their spouses, parents, child or children’s direct heirs. (2) The majority of these decision-making rights are indirect or direct. (3) At least one representative of the family or kin is formally involved in the governance of the company. Listed companies meet the definition of a family business if the person(s) who established or acquired the company (share capital) or their families or descendants hold at least 25 per cent of the decision-making rights mandated by their share capital. This definition includes family companies which have not yet gone through the first generational transfer. In the complement surveys, the assignment of companies to the class of family or non-family companies is based on the self-assessment of the company’s experts, who are usually members of the management or a group of executives. The classification in the FamData as family businesses or non-family businesses is based on these two approaches: either the company meets the above formal definition or describes itself as a family business. 2 Description of the Database FamData The FamData database of the Foundation for family businesses was initiated in 2017 and has since been continuously built up and enriched with data. Meanwhile, more than 12,000 companies as well as survey results from numerous primary research of the Foundation for Family Businesses in cooperation with the ifo Institute and other research institutions can be found in the database. Database for Family Business 237 Basically, the FamData contains of three areas: 1. Company database: pseudonymized structural and financial historical data amongst all companies with differentiation (if possible) in family and non-family businesses containing the 500 largest family businesses and a corresponding control group. 2. Survey database: pseudonymized survey data on relevant political economic topics among the participating panel members (approximately 3800 firms who agreed on taking part regularly in surveys) of the FamData (see Section 3). 3. Shareholder database: pseudonymized shareholder data based on regular surveys among the family businesses companies of the panel containing questions on the generation and succession plans of the business for example. The company database contains in pseudonymous form all information on structural variables (industry, number of employees, legal form, year of foundation, stock exchange listing) and financial variables (turnover, profit, equity, etc.) as well as if possible the criteria of family business. The comprehensive company information is taken from the Orbis database. 2 This contains data on more than 300 million companies worldwide. The database is operated by Bureau van Dijk, a subsidiary of Moody’s Analytics. Bureau van Dijk collects and processes data from more than 170 different providers as well as from hundreds of its own sources, which are combined in Orbis. These primarily include national credit agencies, such as Creditreform for Germany and Austria, but Fitch Ratings and Reuters are also among the database’s sources. For FamData, it is central that all companies are divided into family and non-family businesses. FamData contains different sources and approaches which companies meet the criteria of family business or non-family businesses. Those were researched by the Foundation for Family Businesses itself or by its project partners, e.g. information on long-standing or listed family businesses. In all surveys, participants are also asked to classify themselves as family business or non-family business. FamData also includes the 500 largest family businesses in Germany identified by the Institut für Mittelstandsforschung in Mannheim (Stiftung Familienunternehmen 2022a). 3 This compilation of the TOP 500 family businesses in Germany is regularly commissioned by the Foundation for Family Businesses and contains of the 500 family businesses with the highest sales plus the 500 family businesses with the most employees. Since there is a very large overlap here, the result is a compilation of currently 628 family businesses. In addition to the TOP 500 family businesses, a control group was identified from the group of non-family 2www.bvdinfo.de. 3The list of the Top 500 family businesses comprises those companies with a turnover of more than 474 million euros or at least 1978 employees in 2020. 238 J. Garnitz et al. businesses in FamData whose structure (such as sector and company size) matches that of the largest family businesses. The database currently comprises 12,940 businesses, of which 54 percent are family businesses and 12 percent are non-family businesses. 4 The survey database contains all micro data from the surveys in pseudonymized form (for the contents of the surveys, see chapter 3). In addition, selected structural data on the companies, which are asked in every survey, are: self-identification of family business or non-family business, turnover in Germany and abroad, employees in Germany and abroad. Thus, each survey wave includes timely performance indicators like employees and turnover. The shareholder database, whose questions are part of one regular annual survey, are dealing with the following aspects amongst family businesses and are also provided in pseudonymized form: –Are family members active in the management? –Does the family business have a supervisory board? –Are family members active in supervisory bodies? –Are there successors from the family for the management? –Are there successors from the family for the supervisory bodies? –In which generation is the company currently managed? –How many family members own the company? The anonymity and pseudonymity assured to the participants is always maintained. Table 1 gives an overview of the distribution of firms in FamData across various dimensions like branch, size or legal type. Not for all firms all information are available. So, percentages do not always add up to 100 %. As in the ifo monthly business survey large firms are oversampled (Hiersemenzel et al. 2022). The other two parts of the FamData cover the survey results. The panel currently consists of 3773 respondents from family and non-family businesses, who are usually members of the management or other senior staffin the company. They have agreed to be available for the regular surveys. The panel was built up by actively contacting companies during the surveys for the Annual Monitor. The companies were selected by sampling from the Orbis database across all sectors and size classes. With an average response rate of two percent achieved using postal mailing, a correspondingly large sample must be drawn to build up the panel in the long term. Around 30,000 companies were randomly contacted each year until 2021. The panel started in 2017 with an initial 623 panel members. Each year, new companies were successively recruited for the 4For 34 percent of the companies, there is no clear classification regarding family or non-family business due to a lack of data or self-classification. Database for Family Business 239 Table :Distribution of firms in FamData across size and branches. FamData Non-family business Family business Panel No. % No. % No. % No. % Size range classification (No. of employees) –  .  .  .  . –  .  .  .  . –  .  .  .  . –  .  .  .  . >.  .  .  .  . Total  .  .  .  . Sector Mining and quarrying  ..  .. Manufacturing  .  .  .  . Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply  .  .  .  . Water supply  ..  .  . Construction  ..  .  . Wholesale and retail trade  .  .  .  . Transportation and storage  ..  .  . Accommodation and food service activities  ..  .  . Information and communication activities  ..  .  . Financial and insurance activities  .  .  .  . Real estate activities  ..  .  . Professional, scientific and technical activities  .  .  .  . Other economic service activities  ..  .  . Education  .... Human health and social work activities  .... Arts, sports and recreation  ...  . Other service activities  ..  .  . Total  .  .  .  . Legal classification Corporate entities  .  .  .  . Non-corporate entities  .  .  .  . Individual proprietorship  ..  .  . Total  .  .  .  . Turnover classification <million  ..  .  . –million  ..  .  . – million  ..  . . – million  .  .  .  . > million  .  .  .  . Total  .  .  .  . Note: All information as of end . Not for all firms all information are available. 240 J. Garnitz et al. surveys in this way. After the panel grew to more than 3000 companies in 2021, the randomly drawn sample for the new recruitment was reduced by about one third. Currently, 3773 company representatives are available for the regular surveys. In the future, the aim is to keep this panel stable at this size of around 4000 companies. The respective response rates in the various surveys range between 32 and 54 percent, with an average of 42 percent. The difference can be explained by the respective choice of topic on which the survey is based: In 2020, the focus of the Annual Monitor was on the corona crisis and its impact on companies. A particularly large number of companies felt that this topic was relevant, and the best response rate of 54 percent was achieved. The success in attracting new companies to the panel was also about twice as high as in other years, with over 1000 new members. 3 Topics and Publication of the Supplementary Survey Data FamData enables diverse research on a wide range of topics. For this reason, there is no fixed structure to the supplementary survey data, except for the shareholder structures in family businesses. Each year, the topics are selected according to current relevance to business and economic policy. The survey is conducted both by standard mail and via an online survey. The survey of new recruited participants can only be carried out by mail. However, for ecological reasons, as well as due to the faster, more efficient and resource-saving availability of survey results for short-term relevant questions, the aim is to further expand the online proportion of panel members. After the survey was primarily conducted by mail at the beginning of the panel survey, the proportion of online participants has now gradually increased from 30 percent in 2019 to a balanced ratio of 50 percent each of online and paper participants in 2022. A short overview of all surveyed topics gives Table 2, including the respective reference with the presentation of the survey results. The respective questionnaires can be found in Garnitz et al. (2023). The most comprehensive surveys are those of the annual monitor. These surveys have been carried out since the beginning of the project and represent the main waves. Figure 1 gives an overview of the panel structure of FamData for the six main waves, thus provides information how often and regular panel companies participated. The left panel shows all companies entering the panel over the waves. The right panel displays how constantly firms participated in the respective waves. The picture reveals some fluctuations, which are quite usual for those voluntary surveys, as companies join or leave the panel. Wave 4, whose topic was the Corona pandemic, turned out to be a catching subject for the firms, reflecting a high response Database for Family Business 241 Table :Covered topics in surveys. Year Topic Survey/project partner Responses Survey period Reference  Investment behavior and its influencing factors Annual monitor (Wave )  May–July  Rathje and Wohlrabe (); Stiftung Familienunternehmen ()  International tax competition from a corporate perspective Annual monitor (Wave )  April–July  Rathje and Wohlrabe (); Stiftung Familienunternehmen ()  Economic policy for a strong EU Annual monitor (Wave )  April–June  Garnitz et al. (); Rathje (); Rathje and Hannich (); Stiftung Familienunternehmen (b)  The resilience of the German economy in the corona pandemic Annual monitor/ ZEW (Wave )  May–June  Stiftung Familienunternehmen ()  The corona pandemic: Testimony to policy Mood monitor  October   Contribution of family governance to the crisis resilience of the family business Research survey prof. Windthorst  August– September  Windthorst ()  Climate protection challenge Annual monitor (Wave )  May–July  Stiftung Familienunternehmen (a)  Motives for a foundation solution Research survey IPRI  February– March  Stiftung Familienunternehmen (b)  Expectations on the new federal government Mood monitor  August– September   Burden of rising energy costs I –effects on companies and their political proposals for action Mood monitor  April   Shortage of skilled workers from the company’s point of view: effects and possible solutions Annual monitor (Wave )  June– August  Stiftung Familienunternehmen (b)  Burden of rising energy costs and lack of security of supply II – impact on companies Mood monitor  October  242 J. Garnitz et al.