Managing Family Members: How Monitoring and Collaboration Affect Extra‐Role Behavior in Family Firms

Abstract

AbstractIn a study of family firms that included survey responses from both family CEOs and family member employees, we examined the roles that collaboration and CEO monitoring play regarding the prevalence of extra‐role behavior, an important human resource outcome that can impact job performance and firm performance. Results indicated that an integration of stewardship and agency theories (manifested through interactions between family harmony and adaptability with monitoring) helps explain the level of extra‐role behavior displayed by family employees. The findings lend some support for the argument that effective human resource practices in family firms should be balanced between instrumental governance mechanisms that reflect a monitoring approach and normative mechanisms that focus on collaborative efforts among family employees. When this balance is achieved, an environment of fairness and accountability rather than a tone of distrust and forced compliance may prevail in family firms, thus addressing a key human resource issue in this hybrid form of organization. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.