This paper is the first study on the effects of pay–performance sensitivity (PPS) on the performance of initial public offerings (IPOs) in the presence of social ties and family ties of the top managers with board members. We find that both social ties and family ties increase PPS. In turn, PPS improves IPO performance. More importantly, greater PPS increases the positive effect of social ties on IPO performance whereas it reduces the negative effect of family ties.

This paper summarizes the key results of the papers published in this special issue as well as highlights recent developments in the related literature. The special issue includes papers on CEO successions, the boards of directors of financial institutions, board independence, gender balance and directors' networks.

This paper studies the factors that influence the CEO succession decision in family firms whose incumbent CEO is a member of the controlling family. The sample includes all such firms from France, Germany and the UK. We propose a new measure of directors' independence, which adjusts for various links with the controlling family. While we find that conventionally defined directors' independence has no impact on the CEO succession decision, our corrected measure reduces the likelihood of the successor being another family member. There is also evidence that firms from France that are cross-listed in the UK or USA are less likely to appoint another family CEO.