Non-Family Member Employees




Winter


10


SURVIVING
&
THRIVING
AS
AN
OUTSIDER

Joelle

MacPhee

208
569
899


Instructors:
Susan
Van
Der
Hout,
Julie
Morton


Course:ENTRE4950R


ABSTRACT
This paper identifies three ways of thinking that will empower non-family employees to strategically achieve their career goals within a family enterprise environment. By referring to an interview between a family firm CEO and his top nonfamily member employee along with thorough research into the topic, the paper identify the main challenges involved for a non-family member and the tactics that can be used to prevent and/or deal with them. The paper concludes with the overarching message that although nonfamily employees of family firms face a particularly complex and uncertain situation, they can obtain knowledge power by leveraging the unique nature and exclusive factors of family enterprise, which in turn will empower them f can be empowering to pursue strategies for incredible success.




2


I. INTRODUCTION
Wal-mart’s enormous success certainly did not just sprout from the Walton family tree. And Ford Motors did not revolutionize the car industry solely on the innovative contributions of the Ford family alone. In fact, I would argue that no family business has ever succeeded without the indirect or direct influence of non-family members. In fact, non-family members create tremendous value for entrepreneurial family enterprises. It has been estimated that over 80% of people employed in family businesses are not actually family.1 As a result, the ability to not only attract and retain these value-creating, non-family employees, but more importantly to create an environment where they can thrive is imperative to the entrepreneurial family firm’s long-term, competitive advantage.2 This being said, the mental preparedness expected of a non-family employee is substantially more demanding in family business than in business in general.3 There are many unique and challenging factors...