In the Hand of the Family: Management Practices and Perceived Job Quality

Abstract

"This paper explores the use and implications of management practices in family firms compared to firms with dispersed ownership. Our longitudinal and representative employer-employee data set contains detailed information on the implementation of management practices at the firm level, as well as on the type of management in family firms. The analyses show that family firms are not inherently less likely to implement management practices as compared to firms with dispersed ownership, as the differences are driven by the type of management rather than ownership. We find that family-managed family firms are less likely to have implemented structured management practices, whereas externally-managed family firms are not as different from firms with dispersed ownership. Yet, we show that perceived job quality in family firms such as job satisfaction, procedural fairness and leadership quality, does not suffer from the lack of formal practices, suggesting that informal practices play an important role in family firms. For externally-managed family firms, we even find tentative evidence for comparatively higher levels of perceived job quality." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Ehmann, S., Kampkötter, P., Wenzel, J. & Wolter, S. (2024): In the Hand of the Family: Management Practices and Perceived Job Quality. (SSRN papers), Rochester, NY, 39 p. DOI:10.2139/ssrn.5060329