Privileging Domestic Employees Under Foreign Employees’ Radar? Family Businesses Caught Between Being Nationally Loyal and Internationally Attractive

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Keywords: Family businesses; nationalism; trust; nationality-based exclusion, workforce diversity, organizational climate, inclusion

Abstract: For family businesses, local and national embeddedness and loyalty are often key success factors which shape their identity, providing them with legitimacy and privileged access to local resources. However, just as with other businesses, family businesses are often dependent on an international workforce, if they wish to become (or remain) internationally competitive. Family businesses may therefore find themselves caught on the horns of a dilemma: they are expected to favor domestic employees, yet must simultaneously signal a welcome to foreign employees. Based on data drawn from 3,609 French and Swiss employees working in Switzerland, this article analyzes, for the first time, how this dilemma manifests itself in the perceived organizational climate for foreign employees. It is apparent that whilst Swiss employees perceive their French colleagues as being more excluded in family businesses (as compared to non-family businesses) solely on the job/career level, their French colleagues in turn perceive French employees as being more excluded solely on the social level. Since it is only the French employees’ exclusion on the career/job level that has an impact on the trust both groups of employees have in their work environment – in different directions, respectively – the trust of Swiss employees rises when French employees receive less job/career-related support, whilst the trust held by French employees does not decrease. For family businesses in particular, this renders the potentially contradictory requirements of needing to be simultaneously nationally loyal and internationally attractive less demanding. By adding in the issue of nationalist dynamics in the workplace, this article makes an important contribution to family business research. Furthermore, by incorporating the perspective of privileged groups, this article broadens the discourse on diversity and inclusion at work.