Employee motivation and job satisfaction in family-owned businesses

This study aimed to investigate the differences in motivational focus and sources of satisfaction between family and non-family employees in family businesses. Data from a questionnaire survey conducted between May and September 2021 were used to examine the relationship of work motivation between family and non-family employees. Data were collected via a questionnaire and interviews with 56 non-family employees and 148 family employees from family businesses of eight Slovak regions. To meet the stated aim, relevant quantitative methods such as the two-sample Fisher’s F-test, two-sample Student’s t-test with inequality of variances, and the Pearson correlation method were applied. Based on the established results, it can be assumed that it is possible to adapt the dealings with the employees of family companies more closely to their individual needs, and thus contribute to their performance. Non-family employees are more oriented towards economic benefits. Family employees show a more balanced orientation between economic benefits and moral satisfaction. This confirms that financial considerations are still an important factor of motivation for non-family employees. According to the results of the study, non-family employees tend to focus on content and activity, while family employees rather focus on success. A possible explanation could be that family members perceive the success of a company more than their own and feel more confident in the choice of activities they would like to carry out, so they take this fact more than for granted.
AcknowledgmentThis paper has been supported by funds of the project VEGA No. 1/0240/20. This study was supported by the project GAAA 5-5/2020 “Development of family businesses in Slovak regions”, which has received funding from Grant Agency Academia Aurea and by project VEGA 1/0813/19 “Managing the development of innovative and start-up forms of businesses in international environment and verification of INMARK concept”, which has received funding from the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic.


INTRODUCTION
The dynamism of the economy depends on the viability of businesses as well as other economic units. The market-oriented economy heavily relies on the business sector. Although the issue of small and medium-sized enterprises is adequately discussed, the sector of family businesses remains a less discussed issue in Central Europe. It can be explained by historical roots, as family businesses do not have the same history and traditions in Central Europe as they have in Western market economies. The existence, performance, and contribution of family enterprises to the regional economy and growth, as well as their contribution to the growth of the national economy, cannot be ignored. Family-owned enterprises are becoming more and more successful on the market due to their exceptional flexibility, high level of commitment of family members participating in the business, and the ability to meet the diversified needs of customers. Negligible is the number of studies addressing the management issue of family enterprises in Central Europe and especially the management of Slovak businesses. The entrepreneurial success, viability of a company, and competitiveness highly depend on the employees working for the family enterprises. There is almost no attention paid to this problem, although it is a crucial internal issue of companies. The problem of employees is a priority issue for the management of family enterprises, as they contribute to the growth and competitiveness of the business. Currently, family enterprises make up about a third to half of the small and medium-sized business sector in Slovakia, depending on the sectors of the national economy. These are all the reasons that explain the need and relevance to address the issue at a scientific level. So far, there are no studies researching family enterprises in Slovakia. This study, therefore, has the ambition to contribute to the objectivization of employees and their motivation in Slovak family enterprises. All of these facts underline the relevance of the researched topic, particularly in terms of business management.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Family entrepreneurship is a traditional form of business. However, although these types of businesses have a significant economic impact, not enough attention has been addressed to them. Different approaches to the definition of family entrepreneurship point to several basic characteristics that are often used in discussions on family enterprises. In particular, the focus is on the four aspects that determine the recognition of a family business: ownership, management, income, and employees. It is the issue of employees and employee motivation that is addressed in this study.
There are several definitions provided by the scientific literature, which are based on different approaches. Handler (1989) mentions that academics are unable to agree on the most important terminative criteria when identifying a family business. However, these include a share in ownership, voting rights, decision-making rights in strategic questions (Borocki et al., 2019;Mikoláš et al., 2019;Mariš, 2019;Mura, 2020), involvement of several generations in a business, etc. A family business can be defined according to family involvement in a company as follows: • A broader definition sets that a family has an effective role in strategic management of a business, as the primary aim is to keep it in family hands. This definition refers to enterprises, where a family member is not in daily contact with an enterprise, but still influences decision-making.
• A closer approach already requires the founder of a family business or his descendant to run the business. According to this definition, only one family member is directly involved in the activities of an enterprise.
• The closest definition determines a family business as a type of enterprise, in which several generations are involved, a family directly manages and owns a business, and more than one family member has a managerial position (Shanker & Astrachan, 1996 Commission has adopted a general definition of a family business. Regardless of the size of a business, the majority of the decision-making rights are in the hands of a person(s) who set up a business or at least one family member, who is formally involved in the management of a company. The European Commission also acknowledges a company to be a family business if a person who set up or acquired the business owns at least 25% of the decision-making rights (European Commission, 2020). A family business is considered to be one, in which at least two generations of a family are involved in running the organization, and have a common aim of maintaining ownership in family hands (Donnelley, 1964).
The difference between a family and a non-family business is not the size of a business (Ghadoliya, 2020). It is important to remember that a family business will only prosper if a family serves a company. Neither business nor family will be successful if the business is run solely to serve a family (Drucker, 1998 The political and economic change in the early 1990s ensured a green light, and many entrepreneurs started their businesses. Those, who started their business in the 1990s are reaching retirement age and are looking for a successor (SBA, 2018; Hadryś-Nowak, 2020). The problem in most companies is that the successor was not found as the preparation phase had already been neglected (Sedláčková, 2019). This requires special attention, as succession is a multilevel process with organizational consequences ( Non-financial factors that determine the business performance are strategic management practices or social media. Family businesses often face significant challenges, but try to overcome difficulties to maintain their activities through generations. However, it has not been confirmed that they face fewer obstacles or crises than non-family businesses (

AIMS AND HYPOTHESES
The present study aims to investigate the differences in motivation and sources of satisfaction between family and non-family employees in family-owned businesses. It is aimed to identify the set differences in the measurement of work motivation in family businesses. The reference groups were family and non-family employees.
In conducting this quantified statistical analysis, the following statistical hypotheses were established, the validity of which was tested using relevant statistical tests: H1 0 : There is no statistical difference between family and non-family employees regarding their satisfaction with the work environment. H1 1 : There is a statistical difference between family and non-family employees regarding their satisfaction with the work environment.
H2 0 : There is no statistical difference between family and non-family employees regarding their job satisfaction.
H2 1 : There is a statistical difference between family and non-family employees regarding their job satisfaction.
H3 0 : There is no significant difference between family and non-family employees in terms of work motivation.
H3 1 : There is a significant difference between family and non-family employees in terms of work motivation.
H4 0 : There is no statistical difference between family and non-family employees in defining the reasons why they work in a family business.
H4 1 : There is a statistical difference between family and non-family employees in defining the reasons why they work in a family business.

METHODOLOGY
A qualitative survey was conducted based on a quantitative study as a part of the project "Development of family businesses in Slovak regions". This project, in terms of its size, duration, complexity, and sustainability, provides an interesting insight into the researched issue. Family-owned enterprises are an important segment of market economies. This paper decided to identify some specifics and problems related to family businesses in terms of strategic management, as well as providing solutions for generational change. The study is a part of a realistic evaluation approach to test the submitted proposals in practical conditions. The research results aim to raise the attention to support these businesses and take the appropriate legislative measures. The most relevant findings are discussed.
First, the questionnaire was compiled. In the second phase, the data were selected from the tar-get segment. In the third phase, in-depth and semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of family businesses. This was followed by data analysis in two stages. The primary research data were obtained through an electronic questionnaire survey. Parametric tests work with a certainly known probability distribution of the base set (most often with a normal probability distribution). If the probability distribution of the population is known or there is no reason to believe that the population follows a known probability distribution (for example, by using statistical hypothesis testing to verify the normality of the population using a random sample), then parametric tests are appropriate. If there is a reason to believe that the base set does not follow a known probability distribution, or it is known, and the assumption of a parametric test is more likely violated, the use of a non-parametric test is more appropriate (Colquhoun, 1971). If the assumptions of para-metric tests are met, their use is more appropriate, because the power of these tests is greater than in the case of non-parametric tests. Efron (1992) showed that in the case of violated assumptions of parametric tests, the power of non-parametric tests may be greater, but this cannot be considered a real advantage. If the assumptions of parametric tests are met, non-parametric tests often offer slightly worse results in terms of validation.
Based on the results of the normality test, the Mann-Whitney U test was applied to test whether the two independent observed samples came from the same probability distribution in the case of rejection of the normality assumption. The null hypothesis states that the probability distributions from which these samples were selected are the same, and is accepted at the significance level α = 0.05 if the value of the test statistic p > 0.05. The samples came from a normal distribution and a t-test was used to test two mean values for independent sets (two-sample t-test), which uses the Student's distribution. The null hypothesis assumes the equality of the mean values of the examined groups. The hypothesis cannot be rejected if the resulting value of the statistical test p is higher than 0.05. The alternative hypothesis represents different mean values of the sets at significance level α = 0.05. It must be replaced the quantiles of the normal distribution with the quantiles of the Student's distribution with n -1 degree of freedom: It applies to unilateral intervals.
The following applies to the right-handed confidence interval: The following applies to the left-handed confidence interval: Boxplot analysis within descriptive statistics was used. This method can be considered as one of the most commonly used visual aids for the graphi-cal presentation of numerical data using quartiles. The boxplot makes it possible to visually assess the mean, deviations, symmetry of the distribution, and the presence of outliers (Spiwok, 2015).

RESULTS
The study aims to identify differences in motivation and sources of satisfaction between family and non-family employees in family-owned businesses. The differences in behavior were compared and the approach to work with responsibilities from the perspective of family and non-family employees in a family business. Employees of family enterprises created two sample groups: non-family employees (56)  The results in Table 1 show that H1 0 is rejected.
H2 examined the statistical difference between family and non-family employees regarding their job satisfaction. The result was determined at the significance level α = 0.05. T-test was applied based on the result of the p-value of the Fisher F-test, where P > 0.05. There is no significant difference in the average values of job satisfaction and the monitored sets of SS and NZ ( Table 2).
The results in Table 2 show that H2 0 is rejected.
H3 monitored the statistical difference between family and non-family employees in terms of work motivation. Student's t-test with equality of variance was used to verify this hypothesis. The result was determined at the significance level α = 0.05. T-test was applied based on the result of the p-value of the Fisher F-test, where P > 0.05. There is a significant difference in the average values of work motivation ( Table 3).
The results in Table 3 show that H3 1 is confirmed, which means that there is a significant difference between family and non-family employees in terms of work motivation.
According to H4 1 , there is a statistical difference between family and non-family employees in defining the reasons why they work in a family business. The result was determined at the significance level α = 0.05. T-test was applied based on the result of the p-value of Fisher's F-test, where P > 0.05 for equality of variances and P < 0.05 for inequality of variances. There is a significant difference in the average values of the importance of work motivation ( Table 4).
The reasons for working in a family business in a group of non-family employees were the stability of a company, better evaluation of work by the company's management, and a smaller team. The implemented project on family businesses brought remarkable results, but only partial results are presented in this paper. The smooth functioning of companies is ensured by human resources, which means that employees are the most important asset of the businesses. The overall satisfaction and satisfaction with workplace conditions were the fundamental factors both for employees of family and non-family businesses.
Differences between the respondents working for family and non-family enterprises were detected by applying quantitative analysis. Ten research hypotheses were established, but only four are presented in this paper. The focus was on the perception of motivation to work from the perspective of family and non-family employees. The overall results showed that the higher the age of a family employee, the lower the overall satisfaction with own work, but the higher the satisfaction with the conditions and circumstances of work. H1 1 detected a significant difference between the sample of family and non-family employees in terms of satisfaction with the work environment. The focus was on the social environment, optimal cooperation, interpersonal relationships, position in the organization, and the personality of managers. Family and non-family employees consider the achieved performance, work results, and personal abilities and skills to be the most important salary criteria. Based on the obtained results, H1 0 was rejected (Figure 1).
H2 tested the statistical difference between family and non-family employees in terms of work satisfaction. Representatives of both groups of the respondents would like to work in a creative team, increase their qualifications and personal development. Thus, H2 0 was rejected ( Figure 2).
H3 1 was confirmed, which says that there is a significant difference between family and non-family member employees in terms of workplace motivation. Regarding the individual aspects that the employees of family companies consider as a key, flexible working time, and working in a good team were emphasized. As a difference has to be highlighted that 69% of non-family employees reported money as a motivation for work, while 39.2% of family employees reported money as an important motivation tool. Working in a good team was a motivating factor for both groups. The least motivating factor for both groups was a well-known background of a company. It does not mean that     a company background is not important at all, but this fact alone is not important for employees to provide higher performance. The paper confirmed that higher education equals higher employee performance. As the employer response is positive for higher performance, the employee will be more satisfied with working conditions (Figure 3).
H4 aimed to determine the statistical difference between family and non-family member employees in defining the reason why they work for a family business. Conclusion and implications are that non-family employees focus on the work and nature of work itself, while family employees want to succeed. Non-family employees are more prosocial, while family employees focus more on their own profit. Non-family employees are slightly active, family employees are more active with a slight focus on economic benefits. Based on the obtained results, H4 1 was confirmed ( Figure 4).

DISCUSSION
This study was interested in the existence of possible differences in the behavior and approaches to work. In particular, the target groups were a family member working in a family business and a particularly non-family worker. As shown by the result of testing H1, a statistical difference was found. It is not surprised, as it was assumed that the attitude of family members working in a family business is affected by different circumstances.
Employee satisfaction with working conditions and work environment is influencing the quality of the work. That was the starting point for the scientific analysis of this study. It was found that there is no significant difference in average satisfaction values with this work and monitored SS and NZ files. This finding was attributed to the fact that the enterprise creates equally favorable conditions for all employees without the distinction of belonging to an enterprise itself. In business practice, non-family employees are not discriminated against by family members in terms of working conditions.
In the case of work motivation, different motivators act on individuals. In the case of working family members, the creation of one's employment, self-realization, success, and subsequent income are strong motivational forces. For non-family workers, income is a significantly stronger motivator because they do not work in their "own" business. Here can be seen a fundamental difference, confirmed by calculations in the case of H3 testing. Very similar is the explanation of H4: family members have a different motivation for working in family businesses than non-family employees.
In the case of job satisfaction, it can be mentioned that in both groups, employees are interested in a creative work environment with the possibility of further personal development and acquisition of professional skills. At this point, the long-term interest of both groups of employees to work in the family businesses can be seen, which is a good signal related to the future development of such businesses.
Source: Authors' processing using SAS software.

CONCLUSION
This study aimed to investigate the differences in motivation and sources of satisfaction between family and non-family employees in family-owned businesses. Family businesses, in terms of employee structure, education, motivation, and performance, were more efficient than other types of companies. These types of businesses are less expansive and perform slower growth in the short term. They use less foreign capital for their expansion. Family businesses value their employees, suppliers, and customers. An employee is a key factor and a guarantee for the company's development, stability, and prosperity. Running a family enterprise is usually associated with a positive reputation and quality goods.
The research results showed that such a positive reputation it is due to the above-standard conditions for health and safety at work, and elimination of harmful factors in the workplace. One of the expected benefits is higher employee motivation. In addition, a company seems to be more stable, continuity of business activity is ensured. As a disadvantage, a possible negative impact on the work-life balance of a family running a company or handing over a company to the next generation can be mentioned.
By compiling the examined data about family and non-family employees, no significant difference can be detected in the degree of importance they attach to different circumstances at work. It was confirmed that financial considerations are still an important factor of motivation for non-family employees in particular. The research results show that family member employees are more success-oriented, while non-family employees of the company rather focus on their activity. There is a simple explanation for this result. Family members perceive the success of the company as their personal success. A family business has both advantages and disadvantages. One of the anticipated benefits is the higher motivation of employees-family members. Family businesses offer a friendly atmosphere, so the business is more efficient and competitive.