Emotional Capital in Family Businesses: Decisions from Human Resource Management Perspective

Abstract

Nowadays, family businesses (FBs) have become a distinctive organizational model, not only for preserving the values of their founders in times of technological, political and economical changes but also for fostering a different kind of organization surrounded by emotional ties. This is particularly interesting to the human resource management (HRM) area, because managers must take decisions aimed at achieving economic and financial goals, which often affect the emotional stability of family members. Regarding this issue, the term emotional capital (EC) appears as a set of assets based on the emotions that the organization has developed over time with their employees. This chapter examines, from the HRM perspective, how human resource choices can be affected in order to preserve a positive EC for organizations. Due to the social implications emotions have in HRM, the chapter also links corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an important management strategy, focused on meeting employees and social concerns, as a way to strengthen the emotional bonds in companies. The literature review and institutional reports pointed the characteristics of FB in Spain, describing how companies could design human resource policies and practices aimed at keeping EC. Finally, the configurational approach of HRM is used to explain the design of the best possible human resource practices adapted to a particular context like FB.