Employees’ organizational preferences: A study on family businesses

Abstract

Favouring family members, family businesses are often labelled as ‘traditional’ in technology, ‘conventional’ in business focus, ‘less energetic’ in development and ‘less exciting’ in change. Yet, the choice of potentially having a non-family employee to work in a family firm is critical and the career path of such employees is often uncertain. Accordingly, this study focuses on identifying and examining the factors behind organizational preferences of non-family employees working in family businesses in Sri Lanka. The survey data covering 145 employees working in 15 privately held family businesses were analyzed using descriptive statistics and stepwise logistic regressions. The results indicate a negative influence of the marital status of the employees and also in the degree of personal rewards whilst job status, the labor market experience, influence from family members and recognition in business from the society have shown a positive effect on being employed in family business as a non-family employee.