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oai:figshare.com:article/34513962 2026-10-14T17:33:35Z category_7 category_21 category_24 category_39 category_64 category_106 category_132 category_134 portal_5 item_type_3 month_year_10_2026

<p>Nomenclature: Acronyms, full names and units.</p> Katarina Vavrová (25823556) Alexander Šarlina (25823559) Roman Lacko (20529001) Zuzana Hajduová (20529004) Medicine Biotechnology Evolutionary Biology Ecology Cancer Science Policy Infectious Diseases Virology test four hypotheses measurement error leaves excludes positive associations country &# 8211 annual decarbonisation rate 7 per cent 2009 &# 8211 year fixed effects negative first difference environmental tax accounts family business research firm environmental behaviour environmental behaviour year observations negative throughout environmental outcomes business statistics business demography xlink "> value added usable proxy twelve sectors tax exposure study design sme concentration sectors starting opposing directions one association literature substitutes level perspective informative rather firm share financing costs family smes family ownership european scale estimate unchanged errors clustered enterprise maturity ecological inference dependent variable data come climate neutrality base composition ask whether 104 ), 053 ). 001 ). <div> <p>Background</p><p>Family firms are the dominant ownership form among European SMEs, and socioemotional wealth theory predicts their environmental behaviour in opposing directions: long-term orientation favours stewardship, capital-commitment aversion favours retrenchment. Because firm-level ownership data linked to environmental outcomes do not exist at European scale, this literature substitutes the small-firm share of a sector for the family ownership its theory concerns. We ask whether that substitution is defensible.</p> <p>Study design/methodology/approach</p><p>We test four hypotheses on 3,352 sector–country–year observations, twelve sectors in twenty EU member states, 2009–2023. The dependent variable is the annual decarbonisation rate: the negative first difference of log greenhouse gas intensity per unit of value added. Data come from Eurostat air emissions accounts, business statistics, environmental tax accounts and business demography, and from ECB interest rate statistics. Models use additive country, sector and year fixed effects, with errors clustered by country–sector.</p> <p>Findings/conclusions</p><p>No hypothesis is supported. The coefficient on SME concentration is negative throughout but insignificant (β₁ = −0.034, p = 0.104), and the null is informative rather than inconclusive: the confidence interval [−0.074, + 0.007] excludes positive associations of consequence. Moderation by financing costs, tax exposure and enterprise maturity does not reach five per cent (p = 0.090, 0.690, 0.053). One association is robust: sectors starting from higher intensity decarbonise faster (β₂ = +0.021, p < 0.001). A second, on tax exposure, proves an artefact of tax-base composition and of a shared denominator.</p> <p>Limitations/future research</p><p>Sectoral SME concentration is not a usable proxy for family-firm environmental behaviour: 58.7 per cent of its variance is sector membership, and correcting for measurement error leaves the estimate unchanged. We read this as evidence about the limits of ecological inference in family business research, not as a refutation of the theory. Progress requires linking ownership registers to environmental records.</p></div> 2026-10-14T17:33:30Z Dataset Dataset 10.1371/journal.pone.0351581.t001 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/_p_Nomenclature_Acronyms_full_names_and_units_p_/34513962 CC BY 4.0