Socioemotional wealth, family governance, and organizational belonging in multigenerational family firms: a social identity perspective

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between socioemotional wealth (SEW) and employees’ organizational belonging (OB) in family firms and to investigate the mediating role of family governance (FG) in this relationship. The statistical population of the study consisted of employees working in family businesses, from which a sample was selected using a survey-based approach. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire and the sampling process followed a convenience sampling method among employees of family firms. To analyze the proposed research model, structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed using AMOS software. In addition, the mediating role of family governance was tested using the bootstrapping method with 5,000 resamples and a 95% confidence interval. Multi-group analysis was also conducted to examine differences across demographic groups. The results indicate that socioemotional wealth has a positive and significant effect on both family governance and organizational belonging. Furthermore, family governance has a positive and significant effect on employees’ organizational belonging. The mediation analysis shows that family governance partially mediates the relationship between socioemotional wealth and organizational belonging. The multi-group analysis further reveals that the relationship between family governance and organizational belonging is stronger among female employees and older respondents.