Motivation and Family Business

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Empirical Findings and Analysis

In this part of the thesis, the reader will be introduced to the empirical findings and the analysis of this thesis. First, some background information to the interviewed compa-nies will be applied. Following, the results from the interviewed companies will be pre-sented. Finally, an analysis of the adapted empirical findings will be provided.

Background to the interviewed companies

The authors of this thesis provided ten interviews with eight different family businesses, whereas the family firms are serving in various industries. The manager positions of the respondents distinguished from each other, since all companies are structured different; therefore it was difficult to find businesses with identical work titles. In other words, the authors of this thesis has chosen to interview a variation of family businesses, as well as a variation of respondents in order to receive a wide overview of how motivation is ap-plied in different type of areas.

Interviewed Companies I

The authors of this thesis have presented some background information about the inter-viewed family businesses; in order to provide the reader with a hint of the chosen com-panies. In addition, this background information was added from the family businesses during the interviews.

Interviewed Companies II

The table below provides an overview consisting of six parameters related to the inter-views with the family businesses. The parameters are: Company name, number of inter-views of each company, type of interview, date when the interview took place, and the duration of each interview.

Interviewed Respondents

In order to maintain the anonymously of the respondents; the authors of this thesis have used an alias for each respondent. The alias is first marked with “Respondent” then with a letter in alphabetical order from the English alphabet.

Results from the interviewed companies

A summary of the interviews is provided with the most essential results that the authors of this thesis believe have an impact on this thesis purpose. The authors of this thesis have chosen to present these results from the interviews as quotes, in order to avoid re-petitive results. Since, some of the respondents provided answers that where similar to others. However, the similarities in some of the respondents´ answers have helped the authors of this thesis to clarify the purpose. In addition, all the respondents’ answers are processed equally, although only some of them are presented.
The result of the findings was divided into four categories; Justice Perceptions, Motiva-tional Factors, Characteristics of Family Business and Vision Thinking. These four cat-egories conclude as well as answer the research questions and the purpose of this thesis. Important to point out is that “Vision Thinking” is within an own category in this part of the thesis. Instead, of being a subcategory to “Characteristics of Family Business”, which was the case in the theory part of this thesis. In addition, this separation is pro-vided in order to highlight the importance of the two categories in which are essential for this thesis study.

Justice Perceptions

Justice perceptions comprehend the aspects of how the non-family managers perceive the companies that they are working for. By asking open questions about the respond-ent’s reason to work within their specific family business. The authors of thesis aimed to find out what the respondents thought about their family business, both before start-ing to work there as well as after they started to work there. Justice perceptions include how the respondent’s answers to the following questions from the interviews:
Why did you choose to work here? Did you know that it was a family business? If yes, was that a reason for you to choose to work here?
The answers distinguish between the respondents as well as the respondents did have different knowledge about the family business before starting to work within the organ-ization.
Respondent D stated that “I knew all about the company before even starting to work there. I also enjoyed the fact that it is a family business, since the management team was known for embracing quick decisions as well as they also allow the workforce to in-fluence in the decision making process”.
However, respondent B argues that “I did not know that the company was a family business, I just noticed the fact that the organization was reaching out to recently grad-uated individuals. I did enjoy the fact that the business had a strong local profile”.
Respondent F stated that “I knew that it was a family business, since I have been work-ing externally for the company. I enjoyed the fact that the organization was going to continue as a family business, which resulted in that I started working for the organiza-tion”.
Respondent A argues that “I knew that the company was a family business, however my decision on working with the organization was based on the fact that the family busi-ness was inspiring, supportive and goal oriented. I also choose to work within the fami-ly business, since I knew that the company is accurate with wide margins”.

Analysis of Justice Perceptions

Justice perceptions are created from the family’s influence within a business (Barnett & Kellermanns, 2006). These justice perceptions can either be positive or negative de-pending on whether the employees was treated fair or unfair during the recruiting pro-cess. In addition, eight out of ten respondents argued that their justice perceptions re-garding the recruiting process was positive and therefore these respondents received an encouraging view of the family business. However, two out of ten respondents stated that they were treaded unfair during the recruiting process and therefore they received a negative view of the family firm in which could have lead to bad performance (Barnett Kellermanns, 2006). Furthermore, the justice perceptions can be divided into three different categories, which all relates to how the non-family manager perceived the fam-ily business during the requirement process. These categories that Barnett & Kellermanns (2006) explains can also be found in the respondent’s justice perceptions.
The authors of this thesis assume that the procedural of justice perception appeared sev-en out of ten times, and the distributive justice perception appeared one out of ten times, and lastly the interactional justice perception appeared two out of ten times. In addition, the assumption is based on the respondents as well as the model of Barnett & Kellermanns (2006) in Figure 2.5.
Furthermore, several of the respondent’s argument for working within a family business has its base in Astrachan & Carey (1996) model of family business universe (see Figure 2.4). The first category in the model is supported by respondent A, since the owner of the family business has fully control of the firm due to the fact that he has a strategic position of the business, although he is not managing the firm. In addition, the second category is supported by respondent I, because the owner of the family business has a strategic position of the firm, at the same time as he also is acting as a manager within the business. At last, the third category in the model by Astrachan & Carey (1996) is supported by respondent H, since the family business is not only lead by one owner, leader or manager. Instead, the family firm is directed by several family members in which all have their thoughts and opinions about how to run the family business.
The authors of this thesis assume that all the respondents can be related to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the fifth step in the hierarchy, which is the need for “Self-actualization”. Since, all the respondents were within the thought of mind whereas they tried to “become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming” (Maslow, 1954, p. 22). In addition, the authors of this thesis therefore as-sume that the first four stages within Maslow´s Hierarchy of Needs are achieved by all of the respondents. Since, the authors of this thesis received the impression of that all of the respondents had a stable and healthy life situation. The assumption is based on some open questions that were asked during the interview as well as on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Motivational Factors

Motivational factors include the respondent’s answers to the following questions from the interviews:

• What motivates you in your work? How important are financial considerations? Are there other aspects, if so, which ones? o Have the special culture that occurs within the family business a positive or negative impact on motivation?
• What is required for this company to motivate their employees?
• What motivates you as a non-family manager to continue working within the family business?

The answers to these questions differ widely from the respondents, whereas several mo-tivational factors where mentioned as the main reason to why the respondent work with-in a family business.
Respondent D states that “I think that financial aspects does effect the motivation, how-ever the opportunity to effect the family business decision process and the liberty to work under the owner of the company is motivation in itself. The most important moti-vational factor for me is the chance to influence the culture of the family business, through the decision making process”.
Respondent E supports respondent D statement; whereas the respondent argues that “The culture within a family business is what motivates the employees the most. Espe-cially, if the owner have a relaxed profile in the sense that they allow the employees to work freely, although the workforce have clear instructions in how to perform their work”. Furthermore, respondents E also argue that “The financial aspects, such as in-centives and salary, have an influence on the motivational factor, although this is not the main reason for working within the family business”.
Respondent C states that “The most important motivation factor is the challenge that the job offers as well as the job also has diversified tasks. In other words, neither the fi-nancial aspects nor the culture of the family business has influenced my decision to work within the organization”.
Furthermore, respondent C also argues that “The financial aspects are rather de-motivating then motivating, since the salary is not that large. Therefore, the tasks and the challenge of the job have a vital impact in the motivation factor of this job”.
Respondent J argues that “Responsibility and the opportunity to influence the family business decision making process and future are vital factors in order to be motivated as an employee. Since, these factors are important in order to receive a higher salary; the financial aspects are therefore an indirect motivational factor, because it reflects an employee’s performance”.

Analysis of Motivational Factors

According to Herzberg et al., (1959) there are several motivational factors that affect the job performance as well as the job satisfaction for the employees within an organization. In addition, eight out of ten respondents argued that the financial incentives are only an indirect motivational factor. Instead, the challenge as well as the tasks provided within a job was what truly motivated the respondents.
Furthermore, all the respondents argued that they are motivated by having the oppor-tunity to be part of the decision making and by having the opportunity to influence the future culture within the family business. In addition, these motivational factors are supported by Kovach (1995) in which argues that employees rather appreciates an inter-esting job with challenging tasks then receiving a higher salary.
Nohria et al., (2008) supports the argument above by stating that organizations must de-sign jobs that are interesting, meaningful and challenging in order for the employees to increase their motivation as well as the performance within the business. Moreover, Herzberg (1968) also argues that motivational factors are needed in order to increase the employee’s performances as well as employee’s satisfaction. In other words, the finan-cial incentives only effect the employee’s motivation in the short-run. It is therefore vi-tal for all organizations to motivate their employees by providing them with challenging tasks as well as by offering them the chance to influence the business, in order for the organization to have a motivated as well as a satisfied workforce in the long-run.
According to Osterloh & Bruno (2000) the idyllic incentive system for extrinsic motiva-tion is pay-for-performance. While, intrinsic motivation occurs when an activity is un-dertaken for ones direct satisfaction need as well as it is required for challenges that is in need for creativity.

Acknowledgements
Abstract 
1 Introduction 
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem Discussion
1.3 Purpose
1.4 Delimitations
2 Frame of Reference 
2.1 Motivation Research
2.2 Family Business Research
2.3 Motivation and Family Business
3 Method 
3.1 Research Method
3.2 Strategy for Research
3.3 Data Analysis
4 Empirical Findings and Analysis 
4.1 Background to the interviewed companies
4.2 Results from the interviewed companies
5 Discussion 
6 Conclusion
Appendix
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Motivation within a Family Business Why are non-family managers motivated to work within a family business?