Admittedly, this proposition is rather general and should apply not only to the CFO, but also
to most other non-family managers in FBs. Therefore, variegating this proposition depending
on different corporate governance configurations (the existence of non-family directors or
members of the management board) in FBs or control mechanisms (e.g., stock option-based
incentive schemes and monitoring systems) would be useful for empirical research efforts in
order to improve the applicability of research findings for concrete FB cases. For instance,
empirical research might test this proposition by comparing the intensity and frequency by
which CFOs have to report to the firm owners, depending on differing degrees of family
influence. Moreover, the situation described in proposition 5 might be different if there is a
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type II agency conflict between the controlling family as the majority shareholder of the FB
and a minority shareholder (Villalonga & Amit, 2006). Therefore, in order to ensure that a
CFO acts in favor of the controlling family and to prevent him or her from treating all
shareholders equally, the family might impose equally rigid or even more rigid control
mechanisms compared to those in NFBs.