Human Resource Management in Family Firms: Review, Integration, and Opportunities for Future Research

Abstract

Human resource management is an understudied but burgeoning topic in the family business scholarly domain. This chapter provides a summary review of the existing literature on human resource management in family businesses and offers pathways for future research. The authors cluster the extant research into topic areas of compensation, recruitment and selection, training, employee performance, and turnover, and offer future research directions for each. In identifying gaps and tension in the literature, the chapter also highlights several broader theoretical pathways for future research. These opportunities include further inquiry into the outcomes of bifurcation bias, or the disparate treatment between family and non-family employees, the nuanced ways family firms recruit and select new employees, the role of high-performance work systems in family firms, the ways image considerations influence human resource practices in family firms, and the application of social network perspectives.

Citation

Marler, L.E., Vardaman, J.M. and Allen, D.G. (2021), "Human Resource Management in Family Firms: Review, Integration, and Opportunities for Future Research", Buckley, M.R., Wheeler, A.R., Baur, J.E. and Halbesleben, J.R.B. (Ed.) Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management (Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, Vol. 39), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 175-201. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0742-730120210000039006