Research suggests that firms with family CEOs differ from other types of businesses, yet surprisingly little is known about how employees in these firms feel and behave compared to those working in other firms. We draw from family science and management research to suggest that family CEOs, because of their emotion-evoking double role as family members and business leaders, are, on average, more likely to infuse employees with positive emotions, such as enthusiasm and excitement, than hired professional CEOs. We suggest that these emotions spread through firms by way of emotional contagion during interactions with employees, thereby setting the organizational affective tone. In turn, we hypothesize that in firms with family CEOs the voluntary turnover rate is lower. In considering structural features as boundary conditions, we propose that family CEOs have stronger effects in smaller and centralized firms, and weaker effects in formalized firms. Multilevel data from 41,200 employees and 2,246 direct reports of CEOs from 497 firms with and without family CEOs provide support for our model. This research suggests that firms managed by family CEOs, despite often being criticized as nepotistic relics of the past, tend to offer pleasant work environments.

研究表明，拥有家族首席执行官的公司与其他类型的企业不同，但令人惊讶的是，与其他公司的员工相比，人们对这些公司的员工的感受和行为却知之甚少。我们从家族科学和管理研究中得出结论，家族首席执行官由于其作为家族成员和企业领导者的双重角色，平均而言更有可能为员工注入积极的情绪，例如热情和兴奋。聘请了专业的首席执行官。我们认为，这些情绪通过与员工互动过程中的情绪传染的方式在企业中传播，从而设定组织的情感基调。反过来，我们假设在拥有家族首席执行官的公司中，自愿离职率较低。在将结构特征视为边界条件时，我们认为，家族首席执行官在规模较小、集中的企业中影响力较强，而在正规化企业中影响力较弱。来自 41,200 名员工的多层次数据以及来自 497 家有或没有家族首席执行官的公司的 2,246 名首席执行官的直接报告为我们的模型提供了支持。这项研究表明，由家族首席执行官管理的公司尽管经常被批评为过去裙带关系的遗迹，但往往会提供令人愉快的工作环境。