Emotion Work in Family Business

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Emotion Work in Family Business Page 1 of 18 ANZAM 2010 Emotion Work in Family Business Dr Sanjeewa Perera School of Management, University of South Australia, Adelaide Email: [email protected] Dr Shruti Sardeshmukh School of Management, University of South Australia, Adelaide Email: [email protected] Dr Christina Scott-Young School of Management, University of South Australia, Adelaide Email: [email protected] ANZAM 2010 Page 2 of 18 Emotion Work in Family Business ABSTRACT Working in a family business places individuals in a unique position where family and work domains overlap. Relationships and interactions among family members have a critical impact on functioning of family businesses. In this paper we draw on literature in the area of family business and emotion work to explore the nature of emotion work performed by family members who work together (family employees). We highlight how familiarity, presence of others, role and status, length and frequency of interactions, family functionality and the overlap between work and family domains create unique emotion work demands within a family business context. We conclude by the underlining the need to conduct further study in order to enhance our understanding of this distinct emotion work demand. By any definition, family businesses are ubiquitous in the economic landscape. In Australia, family businesses constitute 70% of all enterprises (KPMG, 2009), while in the United States, 80%-90% of businesses are family dominated and provide almost half the nation’s employment (Shepherd and Zacharakis, 2000). Worldwide, the numbers indicate an equally strong presence of family firms - 75% of businesses in the UK, 80% of businesses in Spain, more than 90% of those in Sweden and 99% of those in Italy, and 85% of businesses in the European Union can be classified as family controlled (Upton and Petty, 2000). According to a recent survey, almost half the North American GNP is contributed by family businesses and the contribution is even higher for the EU (65%), Latin America (70%), and Asia (82%) (PriceWaterhouseCoopers, 2008). Even when it is acknowledged that family firms constitute a significant proportion of large businesses, this literature has rarely taken into account the role of family related variables (Dyer, 2003). In such family-based organizations, family and business are integrally intertwined like a möbius strip (Litz, 2008), however the family business literature has mostly focused on the business side of the family business. Therefore, there is a pressing need to integrate the family back into family business research (Heck, 2004; Rogoff and Heck, 2003). Family members working together in a family business are in a unique position as employees needing to manage concurrently two types of relationships in their workplace: both work and private. Considering the inherent bivalent structure of family businesses (Tagiuri and Davis, 1996), it is important to understand the nature of the interactions among family members who work together in family businesses. Ket De Vries (1996) argues that key problems in family firms are often of a 1 Page 3 of 18 ANZAM 2010 psychological nature and that conflicts and interaction patterns from family settings flow into family businesses, often making for dramatic situations. While the impact of family relationships on family businesses has been acknowledged before (Chrisman, Chua, & Sharma,1998; Morris, Williams, Allen, & Avila, 1997), few studies have explored in detail the nature of day-to-day interactions or the emotion work among family members working together in family businesses (family employees). For example it is established that successful family firms are managed by successful families (Masuo, Fong, Yanagida & Cabal 2001), but very little is known about the distinctive interaction patterns and the nature of emotional expression that characterize these successful families (Björnberg & Nicholson 2007; Lumpkin, Martin & Vaughn 2007). The emotion work literature offers a new lens through which to examine these unique family employee interactions. Literature in the area of emotion work acknowledges that working in the modern workplace involves not only independently carrying out job-tasks that are of a technical nature, but also interpersonally ‘interacting, transacting and synchronising with others’ (Boudens, 2005: 1303). Certain emotion display rules, or norms exist in the workplace to specify the ‘appropriate’ expression of emotion and these norms regulate employee interactions. Hence, workplace interactions necessitate that employees attempt to conform to such display rules, or in other words, perform emotion work (Crawley, 2004; Fineman, 1999; Leach and Tiedens, 2004; Tracy, 2000). Certain contextual factors such as role and status, familiarity and presence of others influence the display rules and emotion work among co-workers. Family members working together in a business context are required to frequently interact with each other and thus face a similar need to perform emotion work. However due to the overlap of family and work relationships the contextual factors that impact emotion work among family employees are not well defined. For example when a father and a son interact with each other as co-workers in a family business setting their role and status can become ambiguous. While literature to date has explored emotion work among co-workers few studies have explored how contextual factors impact the nature of emotion work among family employees. 2 ANZAM 2010 Page 4 of 18 Emotion work theory argues that workplace interactions are critically shaped by the emotion displayed by employees interacting with each other (Pugliesi, 1999). Emotion work functions as a communication tool during workplace interactions and can influence the emotion state and/or the behavior of the other party (Cote, 2005; Elfenbein, 2007; Glaso, Ekerholt, Barman, & Einarsen, 2006; Zapf, 2002). For example, communication of displeasure through facial display can be used to compel a subordinate to comply with one’s wishes, whereas communication of happiness through emotion work can make a subordinate feel valued, thereby making him or her more amenable to the influence of a supervisor. Emotion work thus impacts the immediate outcomes of interactions in the short term and also influences workplace relationships in the long term. However emotion work can be a double-edged sword. In its positive role, emotion work can ensure a smooth flow of interactions and strengthen workplace relationships (Bolton, 2005; Brunton, 2005; Cropanzano, Weiss, & Elias, 2004; Smollan, 2006; Waldron, 1994). When employees adhere to display norms, this increases the predictability of interactions and makes way for a smooth interaction. Smooth interactions and functional relationships are critical for the success and survival of the family business. Good relationships can give the family firm a strong strategic advantage, while the emotional issues arising out of negative familial interactions and relationships can be detrimental to the family business (Cabrera-Suarez, Saa-Perez & Garcia-Almeida, 2001; Eddleston and Kellermanns, 2007). In its negative role there may be potential ‘costs’ involved in performing emotion work―both to the employee and to the organisation. The effort involved in performing emotion work has been closely associated with burnout, psychological distress, reduced job satisfaction, physical illness, and employee turnover (Bono and Vey, 2005; Dormann and Zapf, 2004; Mann and Cowburn, 2005; Seery and Corrigal, 2009; Zapf, 2002). Managing dual relationships (personal/work) in family businesses is not easy and requires ‘special awareness, careful communication, and extreme effort’ (Jaffe, 2004: 27). Thus performing emotion work in the family business context may potentially have a deleterious effect on family members who work together. These negative, consequences may both be harmful to the family members and may prove to be costly to the business itself. 3 Page 5 of 18 ANZAM 2010 As outlined above the lack of research attention to the nature of emotion work among family employees calls for further study into this unique work setting. Moreover the critical impact emotion work of family employees have on their workplace interactions and consequently family firm performance creates a more pressing need to enhance our understanding of emotion work among family employees. In this paper, we integrate literature on emotion work with family business literature to develop research propositions that illustrate the unique nature of emotion work performed by family employees. In the next section, we briefly outline the two constructs family business and emotion work. We then draw on these two strands of literature to examine in detail the factors that impact the nature of emotion work among family employees. We conclude outlining a proposed research design that could be used to test these propositions. FAMILY BUSINESS There have been many definitions of a family business and most of them have revolved around ownership, control and sometimes expectation or realisation of succession. Barry (1989) defines a family business as an enterprise that is controlled by members of a single family. Daily and Dollinger (1992) and Jaffe (2004) define family firms as those firms which are owned and managed by the family. Chua, Chrisman and Sharma (1999) also distinguish between theoretical definitions and operational definitions of family business. There are several types of
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