ABSTRACT
All of the businesses were started as a family business. Data has shown that 35% of the Fortune top 500 companies around the world in 2016 were family firms. This research aims to find a linkage between family ownership and control to dividend and leverage decision making. The use of both family ownership and control was to separate the different nature of family firms. This research was a quantitative one and performed on non-financial companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange during 2011–2016, analyzed with the multiple regression method. The results of this study showed that family ownership and family control had a significant and positive effect on dividend policies and leverage had a significant positive effect on dividend policies. While family ownership did not affect leverage significantly, family control, dividend and firm size had a significant positive effect on leverage. This research has confirmed that Indonesian family firms chose to retain control over ownership, because of its direct impact to protect the family interest by making strategic decisions.
