Family firms must attract talented employees to stay competitive. They have different employer characteristics than nonfamily firms. For example, although they generally offer lower wages, they also typically offer higher job security and a more cooperative and entrepreneurial work environment. However, drawing on occupational choice theory, we argue that the importance of these unique family firm characteristics depends on the national labor market context in which the family firm is embedded. A multilevel investigation of 12,746 individuals in 40 countries shows that individuals prefer to work in family firms in labor markets with flexible unregulated hiring and firing practices, centralized wage determination, and low labor–employer cooperation. A cross-level analysis further shows that the national labor market context moderates the effects of individual-level factors determining the preference to work in a family firm (e.g., entrepreneurship intention). Our article is the first to consider labor market institutions in research on family firms as employers. Practical implications exist for family firms regarding their employer branding and intrapreneurship strategies.
Gender issues are well-researched in the general management literature, particular in studies on new ventures. Unfortunately, gender issues have been largely ignored in the dynamic capabilities literature. We address this gap by analyzing the effects of gender diversity on dynamic capabilities among micro firms. We consider the gender of managers and personnel in 124 Ukrainian tourism micro firms. We examine how a manager's gender affects the firm's sensing capacities and investigate how it moderates team gender diversity's impact on sensing capacities. We also investigate how personnel composition impacts seizing and reconfiguration capacities. We find that female managers have several shortcomings concerning a firm's sensing capacity but that personnel gender diversity increases this capacity. Team gender diversity has positive effects on a firm's seizing and reconfiguration abilities. Our study advances research on gender diversity and its impact on firm capabilities and illustrates its relevance for staffing practices in micro firms.
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