Family Firms’ HRM Practices Configurations: An empirical analysis

Giulia Flamini and Luca Gnan

The paper aims at investigating configurations of human resource management HRM practices in family firms. Four configurations of HRM practices (labelled the Administrative, Shared, Integrated, and Professional configuration) are developed and explored in a sample of 849 family firms. Support for the proposed HRM practices’ configurations has been verified in the data. Next, the paper explores relationships with the HRM practice’s functional goals and organizational performances in family firms. The study verifies the assumption of equifinality of the four HRMP configurations as the combined effect of the HRM practices on the organizational performances of family firms, although these configurations reveal different functional goals. Then, we discuss implications, limitations, and further steps for research.