5. Discussion and conclusion
5.1. Interpretation of results and implications for theory Our results reveal that socio-demographic, occupation-related, and entrepreneurship-related variables influence the preference to work in family firms. For example, a preference to work in family firms correlates positively with being female, a positive opinion on entrepreneurs, and self-employment intention, while it correlates negatively with length of full-time education, living in an urban area, being a manager, and entrepreneurship education. Our results show that a wide spectrum of variables from very different domains influences the preference to work in family firms. Our study thus contributes to develop a more complete picture about the perception of family firms as employers and provides fruitful avenues for future research in this regard. Past research on family firms has shown that conservatism and risk aversion are important characteristics of family firms, which manifests itself in stability and long-term orientation (Astrachan Binz, 2014; Block, 2010; Lumpkin, Brigham, & Moss, 2010). Drawing on the P-O fit theory (Kristof, 1996; Schneider, 1972; Van Vianen, 2000), this in turn suggests that family firms should particularly attract risk-averse job seekers. This reasoning is partially supported by our results. For example, females are often found to be comparatively risk-averse (Byrnes, Miller, & Schafer, 1999) while a higher individual level of education has frequently been associated with a higher level of willingness to take risks (e.g., Herrmann & Datta, 2002; Wiersema & Bantel, 1992). Supporting the risk argument, we find that individuals with a higher fear of failure prefer to work in family firms even when controlling for the wide spectrum of factors influencing occupational decision in the context of business and entrepreurship. However, while age is often positively associated with risk aversion (e.g., Fisch & Block, 2013; Herrmann & Datta, 2002; Nicholson, Soane, FentonO’Creevy, & Willman, 2005), we do not find an age effect. Interestingly, previous research has found inconsistent results in regards to the relation between age and preference to work in family firms: While Covin (1994b) finds that age has a positive effect on preference, Astrachan Binz, Hair, Wanzenried (2013) find a negative effect and attribute this contradictory finding to the different sample used. Our findings indicate that there seems to be no strong link between age and preference to work in family firms when using a broad, representative sample of working adults. Another attribute of family firms is a strong desire for control by the business-owning family (Schulze, Lubatkin, & Dino, 2003). Families as owners are not passive monitors but rather try to influence their firms in many ways (Audretsch, Hülsbeck, & Lehmann, 2013). This strong desire for control by family owners restricts top management’s freedom to take decisions and reduces managerial discretion (Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1990; Migué, Belanger, & Niskanen, 1974). Highly qualified and entrepreneurially-minded individuals, and top managers in particular, however value decision making power, independence, and managerial discretion (Migué et al., 1974). Hence, this might also explain why managers in particular, but also individuals with a higher level of education and individuals with an entrepreneurial education, find family firms less attractive. This would also suggest that senior managers have a lower preference to work in family firms, which we find support for in our univariate and multivariate results. However, this effect disappears when entrepreneurship-related variables are entered into the regression model. Thus, a mediation effect of some sort seems to exist. Entrepreneurship-related variables (e.g., self-employment intention, fear of business failure) seem to at least partially mediate the relationship between having a management position and having a preference to work in family firms. Another interesting finding is that family firms seem to be less attractive as employers in urban versus rural regions. This finding is in line with previous research showing that the image of family firms varies from region to region (Basco, 2015; Bird & Wennberg, 2014). According to previous research, this finding can be explained by a greater embeddedness of family firms in rural regions as opposed to non-family firms. Another explanation might be that attitudes of individuals differ between urban and rural areas. For example, people in urban areas might value independence, self-autonomy and individualism more than people in rural areas, where stability and conservatism might play a greater role (Florida, 2002). Finally, people in urban areas also have more employers to choose from, which is why stability and longterm orientation of an employer matter less. This, however, are the main positive features of family firms.
