تعهد و رضایت شغلی مؤثر در میان کارمندان غیر خانواده: بررسی نقش‌های احساس عدالت و مالکیت روان‌شناختی

Due to numerous characteristics often attributed to family firms, they constitute a unique context for non-family employees’ justice perceptions. These are linked to non-family employees’ pro-organizational attitudes and behaviors, which are essential for family firms’ success. Even though scholarly interest in non-family employees’ justice perceptions has increased, more research is still needed, also because the mechanism connecting justice perceptions and favorable outcomes is not fully understood yet. We address this gap by explicitly investigating non-family employees’ justice perceptions and by introducing psychological ownership as a mediator in the relationships between justice perceptions (distributive and procedural) and common work attitudes (affective commitment and job satisfaction). Our analysis of a sample of 310 non-family employees from Germany and German-speaking Switzerland reveals that psychological ownership mediates the relationships between distributive justice and affective commitment as well as job satisfaction. This represents valuable contributions to family business research, organizational justice and psychological ownership literature, and to practice.

Family firms are often linked with characteristics such as paternalistic–autocratic rule, founder-centric cultures, lack of delegation, ingroup–outgroup perceptions of non-family employees, altruism, and nepotism (cp. Barnett and Kellermanns, 2006, Kelly et al., 2000, Padgett and Morris, 2005, Schein, 1983 and Schulze et al., 2001). These unique aspects constitute potential sources of injustice perceptions of non-family employees (Barnett and Kellermanns, 2006, Blondel et al., 2000 and Carsrud, 2006). This is critical for family firms, as employees’ justice perceptions have been linked to positive work outcomes such as affective commitment (cp. Allen and Meyer, 1990, Meyer et al., 2002 and Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004) and job satisfaction (e.g., Colquitt et al., 2001, Janssen and Van Yperen, 2004 and Judge et al., 2001). Fostering these attitudes among non-family employees is essential to family firms’ success and survival (Barnett and Kellermanns, 2006, Chrisman et al., 2003 and Chua et al., 2003). As a consequence, justice perceptions of non-family employees in family firms have received increasing scholarly attention in recent years (cp. Barnett and Kellermanns, 2006 and Lubatkin et al., 2007). However, the amount of existing research in that context is still regarded as insufficient (Carsrud, 2006), because it is not yet fully understood how exactly justice perceptions weave their way into favorable work attitudes. Even though scholars have intensively tried to explain this mechanism, for example by applying social exchange theory (e.g., Masterson et al., 2000 and Tekleab et al., 2005), Choi and Chen (2007) point out that “there is still very limited knowledge of any mechanism through which they are connected” (p. 688). We address this gap by empirically investigating justice perceptions of non-family employees, explicitly focusing on the mechanism how they lead to affective commitment and job satisfaction. We introduce the concept of psychological ownership as a factor that connects non-family employees’ justice perceptions and their work attitudes. Psychological ownership is defined as “the state in which individuals feel as though the target of ownership or a piece of that target is ‘theirs’” (Pierce, Kostova, & Dirks, 2003, p. 86). This approach is promising as formal equity ownership among non-family employees is uncommon due to the dominant wish of many families to control legal ownership across generations (Chua et al., 1999 and Gomez-Mejia et al., 2007). Feelings of ownership, however, can exist without formal ownership, and can have similar effects as intended by formal ownership (Pierce et al., 2003). Thus, ownership feelings are of special relevance for family firms. Moreover, psychological ownership seems to fit well into the context of justice perceptions and positive work outcomes. This is because on the one hand, recent initial findings indicate that there may exist a link between justice perceptions and psychological ownership (Chi & Han, 2008). On the other hand, scholars have established positive relationships between psychological ownership and both affective commitment (Bernhard and O’Driscoll, 2011, Mayhew et al., 2007 and O’Driscoll et al., 2006) and job satisfaction (Avey et al., 2009 and Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004). However, to date, these fragmented insights have not yet been integrated, and they have not been applied in the family firm context either. Hence, we hypothesize that psychological ownership mediates the relationships between two dimensions of organizational justice perceptions (distributive and procedural) and two common work attitudes (affective commitment and job satisfaction). We test the hypotheses on a random sample of 310 non-family employees from family firms based in Germany and German-speaking Switzerland. The findings based on mediation analysis constitute valuable contributions to family business research, organizational justice and psychological ownership literature, as well as to practice. The paper is structured as follows. First, we introduce the theoretical foundations of the main concepts of this study. Second, we theoretically derive our hypotheses. Third, we illustrate the sample as well as the methods used. Fourth, we present the empirical findings. Fifth, we enter into a discussion of the results, contributions, and limitations of the study, and suggest avenues for future research. We then offer our final conclusions.

Addressing the important issue of non-family employees’ justice perceptions and how they lead to pro-organizational outcomes, we successfully validate psychological ownership as an alternative mediator in the relationship between organizational justice perceptions and affective commitment as well as job satisfaction. Our findings constitute valuable additions to family business research, organizational justice and psychological ownership literature, and to practice.