The purpose of this study seeks to examine how nonfamily employees' job autonomy and work passion can influence their job satisfaction and intention to quit in family small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Current, research regarding the determinants of nonfamily employees' job satisfaction and turnover intentions has largely focused on the effects of family influence and family firm characteristics. Accordingly, not much is known of how the job characteristics and emotions of nonfamily employees influence their job satisfaction and intention to quit.
Data were collected from 160 nonfamily employees across 28 family-SMEs. Process macro was used to analyze the mediating role of nonfamily employees' work passion in the relationship between their job autonomy and job satisfaction and intention to quit.
Findings showed that nonfamily employees' job autonomy only had a significant direct effects on their job satisfaction and not their intention to quit. Subsequently, nonfamily employees' work passion was found to only partially mediate the relationship between their job autonomy and job satisfaction.
By focusing on the concepts of job autonomy and work passion, the study adds additional insights about the drivers of nonfamily employees' pro-organizational attitudes in family-SMEs. Also the study represents one of the first efforts in the literature to establish a link between job autonomy and the work passion of nonfamily employees with respect to their job satisfaction.
