Employee Silence and Entrepreneurial Orientation in Small and Medium-Sized Family Firms
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24310/ejfbejfb.vi.13536Keywords:
Family firms, Portuguese companies, Employee silence, Entrepreneurial orientationAbstract
This paper aims to assess differences between employees of family and non-family firms regarding their levels of employee silence and their perceptions of the company’s entrepreneurial orientation. Moreover, focusing on family firms, we assess the relationship between the levels of employees’ silence and their perceptions of the firm’s entrepreneurial orientation. The empirical evidence is provided by a sample of 245 Portuguese employees, 117 employees of family firms, and 128 of non-family firms, who responded to a questionnaire that included employee silence and entrepreneurial orientation measures. Results reveal that family firms’ employees show higher levels of employee silence but perceive their companies as less entrepreneurially oriented than employees of non-family companies. In addition, our results do not support the idea that there is a relationship between the levels of employee silence and the employee’s perception of the company’s entrepreneurial orientation. This paper offers initial insights into the debate on the relationship between the levels of employee silence and the employee’s perception of the company’s entrepreneurial orientation in family firms.
Downloads
Metrics
References
Alayo, M., Maseda, A., Iturralde, T., & Arzubiaga, U. (2019). Internationalization and entrepreneurial orientation of family SMEs: the influence of the family character. International Business Review, 28(1), 48-59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2018.06.003
Aldrich, H. E., & Cliff, J. E. (2003). The pervasive effects of family on entrepreneurship: toward a family embeddedness perspective. Journal of Business Venturing, 18(5), 573-596. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0883-9026(03)00011-9
Aparicio, G., Ramos, E., Casillas, J. C., & Iturralde, T. (2021). Family Business Research in the last decade. A bibliometric review. European Journal of Family Business, 11(1), 33-44. https://doi.org/10.24310/ejfbejfb.v11i1.12503
Berrone, P., Cruz, C., & Gómez-Mejía, L. R. (2012). Socioemotional wealth in family firms: theoretical dimensions, assessment approaches, and agenda for future research. Family Business Review, 25(3), 258-279. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894486511435355
Boling, J. R., Pieper, T. M., & Covin, J. G. (2016). CEO tenure and entrepreneurial orientation within family and nonfamily firms. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 40(4), 891-913. https://doi.org/10.1111/etap.12150
Carver, C. S., Scheier, M. F., & Weintraub, J. K. (1989). Assessing coping strategies: a theoretically based approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56(2), 267-283. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.56.2.267
Chou, S. Y., & Chang, T. (2020). Employee silence and silence antecedents: a theoretical classification. International Journal of Business Communication, 57(3), 401–426. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488417703301
Covin, J. G., & Slevin, D. P. (1989). Strategic management of small firms in hostile and benign environments. Strategic Management Journal, 10(1), 75–87. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250100107
Covin, J. G., & Wales, W. J. (2012). The measurement of entrepreneurial orientation. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 36(4), 677-702. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2010.00432.x
Covin, J. G., & Wales, W. J. (2019). Crafting high-impact entrepreneurial orientation research: some suggested guidelines. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 43(1), 3-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258718773181
Chua, J. H., Chrisman, J. J., & Sharma, P. (1999). Defining the family business by behavior. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 23(4), 19-39. https://doi.org/10.1177/104225879902300402
Discua Cruz, A., Howorth, C., & Hamilton, E. (2013). Intrafamily entrepreneurship: the formation and membership of family entrepreneurial teams. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 37(1), 17-46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2012.00534.x
Duran, P., Kammerlander, N., Van Essen, M., & Zellweger, T. (2016). Doing more with less: innovation input and output in family firms. Academy of Management Journal, 59(4), 1224-1264. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2014.0424
Eddleston, K. A., Kellermanns, F. W., & Sarathy, R. (2008). Resource configuration in family firms: linking resources, strategic planning and technological opportunities to performance. Journal of Management Studies, 45(1), 26-50. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2007.00717.x
Edmondson, A. C. (2003). Speaking up in the operating room: how team leaders promote learning in interdisciplinary action teams. Journal of Management Studies, 40(6), 1419-1452. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6486.00386
Garcés-Galdeano, L., Larraza-Kintana, M., García-Olaverri, C., & Makri, M. (2016). Entrepreneurial orientation in family firms: the moderating role of technological intensity and performance. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 12(1), 27-45. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-014-0335-2
Gómez-Mejía, L. R., Haynes, K. T., Núñez-Nickel, M., Jacobson, K. J., & Moyano-Fuentes, J. (2007). Socioemotional wealth and business risks in family-controlled firms: evidence from Spanish olive oil mills. Administrative Science Quarterly, 52(1), 106-137. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.52.1.106
Gómez?Mejía, L. R., Larraza?Kintana, M., Moyano?Fuentes, J., & Firfiray, S. (2018). Managerial family ties and employee risk bearing in family firms: evidence from Spanish car dealers. Human Resource Management, 57(5), 993-1007. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21829
Hernández-Linares, R., & López-Fernández, M. C. (2018). Entrepreneurial orientation and the family firm: mapping the field and tracing a path for future research. Family Business Review, 31(3), 318-351. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894486518781940
Hernández-Perlines, F., Covin, J. G., & Ribeiro-Soriano, D. E. (2021). Entrepreneurial orientation, concern for socioemotional wealth preservation, and family firm performance. Journal of Business Research, 126, 197-208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.12.050
Josefy, M. A., Harrison, J. S., Sirmon, D. G., & Carnes, C. (2017). Living and dying: synthesizing the literature on firm survival and failure across stages of development. Academy of Management Annals, 11(2), 770-799. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2015.0148
Kachaner, N., Stalk, G., & Bloch, A. (2012). What you can learn from family business. Harvard Business Review, 90(11), 102–106.
Kellermanns, F. W., Eddleston, K. A., & Zellweger, T. M. (2012). Extending the socioemotional wealth perspective: a look at the dark side. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 36(6), 1175-1182. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2012.00544.x
Kidwell, R. E. (2008). Adelphia Communications: the public company that became a private piggy bank: a case of fraud in the Rigas family firm. In S. Matulich & D. Currie (Eds.), Handbook of frauds, scams, and swindles: Failures of ethics in leadership (pp. 191-205). New York: Taylor and Francis Group.
Kidwell, L. A., & Kidwell, R. E. (2010). Fraud in the family: how family firm characteristics can shape illegal behavior. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association.
Kizildag, D. (2013). Silence of female family members in family firms. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 4(10), 108-117.
Knoll, M., & Redman, T. (2016). Does the presence of voice imply the absence of silence? the necessity to consider employees’ affective attachment and job engagement. Human Resource Management, 55(5), 829-844. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21744
Kraus, S., Rigtering, J. C., Hughes, M., & Hosman, V. (2012). Entrepreneurial orientation and the business performance of SMEs: a quantitative study from the Netherlands. Review of Managerial Science, 6(2), 161-182. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-011-0062-9
Lumpkin, G. T., & Dess, G. G. (2001). Linking two dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation to firm performance: the moderating role of environment and industry life cycle. Journal of Business Venturing, 16(5), 429-451. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0883-9026(00)00048-3
Miller, D. (1983). The correlates of entrepreneurship in three types of firms. Management Science, 29(7), 770-791. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.29.7.770
Miller, D., & Le Breton–Miller, I. (2011). Governance, social identity, and entrepreneurial orientation in closely held public companies. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 35(5), 1051-1076. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2011.00447.x
Miller, D., Le Breton-Miller, I., & Scholnick, B. (2008). Stewardship vs. stagnation: an empirical comparison of small family and non-family businesses. Journal of Management Studies, 45(1), 51–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2007.00718.x
Morgan, K. E. (2017). Introducing the employee into employee silence: a reconceptualisation of employee silence from the perspective of those with mental health issues within the workplace. Retrieved from http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/17993/1/Kate%20Morgan%20PhD.pdf. Accessed June 2021.
Morrison, E. W., & Milliken, F. J. (2000). Organizational silence: a barrier to change and development in a pluralistic world. Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 706-725. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2000.3707697
Naldi, L., Nordqvist, M., Sjöberg, K., & Wiklund, J. (2007). Entrepreneurial orientation, risk taking, and performance in family firms. Family Business Review, 20(1), 33-47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-6248.2007.00082.x
Nieto, M. J., Santamaria, L., & Fernandez, Z. (2015). Understanding the innovation behavior of family firms. Journal of Small Business Management, 53(2), 382-399. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsbm.12075
Perlow, L., & Williams, S. (2003). Is silence killing your company? IEEE Engineering Management Review, 31(4), 18-23.
Pimentel, D. N. G. (2016). A family matter? Business profile decision and entrepreneurship in family business: the case of the Azores. Doctoral dissertation, Universidade dos Açores (Portugal).
Pimentel, D. (2018). Non-family employees: levels of job satisfaction and organizational justice in small and medium-sized family and non-family firms. European Journal of Family Business, 8(2), 93-102. https://doi.org/10.24310/ejfbejfb.v8i2.5178
Pimentel, D., Almeida, P., Marques-Quinteiro, P., & Sousa, M. (2021). Employer branding and psychological contract in family and non-family firms. Management Research: Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management, 19(3/4), 213-230. https://doi.org/10.1108/MRJIAM-10-2020-1106
Pimentel, D., Couto, J. P., & Scholten, M. (2017a). Entrepreneurial orientation in family firms: looking at a European outermost region. Journal of Enterprising Culture, 25(4), 441-460. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218495817500169
Pimentel, D., Pires, J. S., & Almeida, P. L. (2020). Perceptions of organizational justice and commitment of non-family employees in family and non-family firms. International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, 23(2), 141-154. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-07-2019-0082
Pimentel, D., Scholten, M., & Couto, J. P. (2017b). Profiling family firms in the autonomous region of the Azores. Revista Portuguesa de Estudos Regionais, 46, 91-107.
Pimentel, D., Scholten, M., & Couto, J. P. (2018). Fast or slow? Decision-making styles in small family and nonfamily firms. Journal of Family Business Management, 8(2), 113-125. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFBM-02-2017-0007
Pinder, C. C., & Harlos, K. P. (2001). Employee silence: quiescence and acquiescence as responses to perceived injustice. Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, 20, 331-370. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-7301(01)20007-3
Podsakoff, P., MacKenzie, S., Lee, J., & Podsakoff, N. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879-903. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879
Portuguese Association of Family Business (2021). Brochura de Apresentação Empresas Familiares. https://empresasfamiliares.pt/apresentacao-da-associacao-das-empresas-familiares/. Retrieved from Accessed on May 2021.
Rauch, A., Wiklund, J., Lumpkin, G. T., & Frese, M. (2009). Entrepreneurial orientation and business performance: an assessment of past research and suggestions for the future. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 33(3), 761-787. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2009.00308.x
Sabino, A., & Cesário, F. (2019). O silêncio dos colaboradores de Van Dyne, Ang e Botero (2003): estudo da validade fatorial e da invariância da medida para Portugal. Análise Psicológica, 37(4), 553-564. https://doi.org/10.14417/ap.1641
Samsami, M., & Schøtt, T. (2021). Family and non-family businesses in Iran: coupling among innovation, internationalization and growth-expectation. European Journal of Family Business, 11(2), 40-55. https://doi.org/10.24310/ejfbejfb.v11i2.10444
Schilling, J., & Kluge, A. (2009). Barriers to organizational learning: an integration of theory and research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 11(3), 337-360. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2008.00242.x
Short, J. C., Moss, T. W., & Lumpkin, G. T. (2009). Research in social entrepreneurship: past contributions and future opportunities. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 3(2), 161-194. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.69
Soomro, B. A., & Shah, N. (2019). Determining the impact of entrepreneurial orientation and organizational culture on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and employee’s performance. South Asian Journal of Business Studies, 8(3), 266-282. https://doi.org/10.1108/SAJBS-12-2018-0142
Soriano, D. R., & Huarng, K. H. (2013). Innovation and entrepreneurship in knowledge industries. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 1964-1969. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2013.02.019
Spector, P. E. (2019). Do not cross me: optimizing the use of cross-sectional designs. Journal of Business and Psychology, 34, 125–137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-018-09613-8
Van Dyne, L., Ang, S., & Botero, I. C. (2003). Conceptualizing employee silence and employee voice as multidimensional constructs. Journal of Management Studies, 40(6), 1359-1392. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6486.00384
Wales, W. J., Covin, J. G., & Monsen, E. (2020). Entrepreneurial orientation: the necessity of a multilevel conceptualization. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 14(4), 639-660. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.1344
Wang, C. C., Hsieh, H. H., & Wang, Y. D. (2020). Abusive supervision and employee engagement and satisfaction: the mediating role of employee silence. Personnel Review, 49(9), 1845-1858. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-04-2019-0147
Whiteside, D. B., & Barclay, L. J. (2013). Echoes of silence: employee silence as a mediator between overall justice and employee outcomes. Journal of Business Ethics, 166(2), 251-266. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1467-3
Wiklund, J., & Shepherd, D. (2005). Entrepreneurial orientation and small business performance: a configurational approach. Journal of Business Venturing, 20(1), 71-91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2004.01.001
Wilkinson, A., & Fay, C. (2011). New times for employee voice? Human Resource Management, 50(1), 65-74. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.20411
Zellweger, T. (2007). Time horizon, costs of equity capital, and generic investment strategies of firms. Family Business Review, 20 (1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-6248.2007.00080.x
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright generates two different rights: moral rights and patrimonial rights that EJFB recognizes and respects. Moral rights are those relating to the recognition of the authorship. They are rights of a personal nature that are perpetual, inalienable, unseizable and imprescriptible as consequence of the indivisible union of the author and his/her work. Patrimonial rights are those that can be derived from the reproduction, distribution, adaptation or communication of the work, among others.
Authors who publish in EJFB retain the copyright of their work and grant the right of its first publication to the journal in open access. EJFB is authorized to reproduce, distribute, disseminate or communicate the work under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 License. This means that you are free to share and adapt this work under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit to its author(s), which implie the right to be reconognized and cited correctly.
- NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
- ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.