Ethical Decision-Making in Family Firms: The Role of Employee Identification

Reck, Friederike; Fischer, Dietrich; Brettel, Malte

doi:10.1007/s10551-021-04774-8

Cited by 17 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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“…Santiago, Pandey and Manalac (2019:54) point out that the participating business-owning families align their family and business values so as to protect the reputation and identity of the business, which is linked to the family identity. The family and the business identity and reputation are closely interlinked (Reck, Fischer & Brettel 2021), leading to the family businesses strongly focusing on preserving the identity of both the family and the business and vice versa (Kashmiri & Mahajan 2014:81).…”

Section: Discussion Of Key Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of values in enhancing longevity among indigenous black South African family businesses

Kupangwa

Farrington²,

Venter³

2023

The Southern African Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Busi

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Background: Values play a fundamental role in the longevity of family businesses. However, not fully understanding these roles threatens their long-term survival. Given their potentially large numbers and subsequent ability to reduce unemployment and poverty, it is critical that black-owned South African businesses achieve entrepreneurial success. While much research exists on family business values in a Western and European context, research on family business values in an indigenous black South African (IBSA) context is nonexistent.Aim: The aim of this research is to determine the role that family business values play in enhancing the longevity of IBSA family businesses.Setting: The study focused on IBSA family businesses that are independently owned and managed by one or more IBSAs and which are located in various major cities of South Africa.Methods: A qualitative methodological approach following a multiple–case study design was adopted. Semistructured interviews were conducted with several key participants using a combination of face-to-face, telephone and online interviews. The six steps of reflexive thematic analysis were used to analyse the data.Results: Four themes describe the role of family business values in enhancing longevity among the IBSA family businesses. Family business values were found to guide the behaviour of family business members, build the identity of the business-owning families and their businesses and build a sense of community in both the family and the family business. The continuity and success of their family businesses were also attributed to these underlying family business values.Conclusion: Family business founders and/or current leaders should articulate the value set they uphold and use it as a resource to build the identity of both their families and family businesses while moderating the behaviours of family business members.Contribution: The study responds to several research calls to investigate family businesses in African cultural settings and provides practical guidance to scholars, entrepreneurs and practitioners on how family businesses can use values as strategic resources to enhance business longevity and success.

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Section: Discussion Of Key Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of values in enhancing longevity among indigenous black South African family businesses

Kupangwa

Farrington²,

Venter³

2023

The Southern African Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Busi

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“…Employees' perceptions of CSR are hardly studied in the family firm context (Kuttner and Feldbauer-Durstmüller, 2018;Reck et al, 2021). Despite the strong focus on the important role of family owners and managers in family firm research (Campopiano et al, 2014), showing that family firms display an increased responsibility for their environment EBR 35,5 (Berrone et al, 2010) tend to behave socially and ethically responsible as compared to nonfamily firms (Dyer and Whetten, 2006) and accept financial trade-offs for sustainability (Kallmuenzer et al, 2017), there hardly exist studies taking employees' CSR perceptions as a starting point (Reck et al, 2021). This yet existing gap is also supported by Aguinis and Glavas (2012), who underline that CSR perceptions clearly affect attitudes and behavior of employees.…”

Section: Corporate Social Responsibility Perception Of Family Firm Em...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We follow Aguinis (2011, p. 855) approach in defining CSR as “context-specific organizational actions and policies that take into account stakeholders’ expectations and the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental performance.” The majority of research explored CSR from a business/management perspective, but only limited research explored CSR dynamics on an employee level (Hejjas et al , 2019) and hardly in the family firm context (Reck et al , 2021). Previous research highlighted, e.g.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Employee perceptions of corporate social responsibility activities: the case of family firms

Kallmuenzer

Bichler

Petry

2023

EBR

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Purpose Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming a standard for family firms as the challenges facing organizations today are pervasive. In this context, employees’ perceptions of CSR are a novel research field. This study aims to address human components of business operations as it aims to understand how employees perceive CSR activities and determine their role for employees’ identification and commitment in family firms. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a mixed-method design combining samples of employees of family firms in a quantitative (N = 168) and qualitative phase (N = 18). Findings In summary, the findings show that employee-directed CSR is most effective to influence employees’ identification and commitment. Detailed mediation analyses further support the path from community-oriented CSR toward identification-commitment and performance. Findings from employee interviews show that identification is particularly pronounced in CSR perceptions and that mechanisms of identification occur across three interfaces: the firm, the firm in the region and the firm in a globalized world impacting commitment and performance. Originality/value Family firms engage in various CSR activities. The authors show that existing efforts can be empirically supported but that there is room for improving the strategic selection and engagement of activities. In a nutshell, the findings emphasize the importance of human components for businesses. In this context, understanding how CSR activities build identification and affect organizational commitment has important implications for family firms boosting CSR activities. In particular, the contribution emphasizes family firms’ need to stay engaged in community-directed CSR while increasing awareness for environment-related activities and diversifying employee-related activities to enable identification.

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“…This may be due to a wave of corporate, environmental, and political scandals that have received extensive media coverage of unethical behaviors. The misconduct of corporate leaders has been one of the principal reasons for these scandals (Reck et al, 2021); hence, there is increased social pressure on organizations to enhance their ethical behavior (Saha et al, 2020).The call for top managers to act as ethical leaders also builds steam for a change in stakeholders' expectations in relation to the behavior of firms and their leaders (Pless & Maak, 2011). Therefore, ethics are increasingly being considered an essential characteristic of leadership (Nguyen et al, 2021).…”

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

A generational perspective of family firms' social capital: Interplay between ethical leadership and firm performance

Sanchez‐Famoso

Maseda

Iturralde

et al. 2023

Business Ethics Env & Resp

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This study proposes and tests a model that integrates ethical leadership, internal social capital, and firm performance in small‐ and medium‐sized family firms at different generational stages. Using the upper echelons theory and the social capital perspective of familiness, this study shows that ethical leadership can explain the effectiveness of certain behaviors in relation to family firm performance. Moreover, social capital helps spread a leader's business ethics to firm members, thus improving the family firm's performance. Our results show that founders' personalities and identities determine high internal social capital, which decreases over generations. The study also shows that internal social capital is a communicative element crucial to ethical leadership, facilitating the absorption of the culture and values of the family in the firm. This powerful resource should be promoted and supported by coherent behavior over time by senior leaders.

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Ethical Decision-Making in Family Firms: The Role of Employee Identification

Cited by 17 publications

References 93 publications

The role of values in enhancing longevity among indigenous black South African family businesses

The role of values in enhancing longevity among indigenous black South African family businesses

Employee perceptions of corporate social responsibility activities: the case of family firms

A generational perspective of family firms' social capital: Interplay between ethical leadership and firm performance

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