Who prefers working in family firms? An exploratory study of individuals’ organizational preferences across 40 countries

Employees can work in family or in non-family firms. Using a sample of more than 12,000 individuals in 40 countries, we investigate this particular occupational choice decision by exploring individual preferences to work in family firms. Our results show 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 help family firms with regard to recruiting of non-family employees and employer branding.