We Are Friends but Are We Family? Organizational Identification and Nonfamily Employee Turnover

The family-centric priorities of family firms often disadvantage nonfamily employees and make retaining them problematic. Our study posits organizational identification, or internalizing the firm's identity as one's own, as a key factor in overcoming this challenge. We adopt a social network perspective to examine the differential impact of friendships with family and nonfamily members on nonfamily employees' organizational identification and turnover. Results from a study of the nonfamily employees of a family-owned service company show that centrality in both family and nonfamily friendship networks reduces turnover, but that friendships with family members have a stronger effect. Results also show that various forms of centrality in social networks have indirect effects on turnover through organizational identification, highlighting identification's importance for retaining nonfamily employees.