Amber Raile, assistant professor of communication; Anna Carmon, recent doctoral graduate; Amy Miller, doctoral student; and Michelle Roers, master’s degree graduate, have published an article in the Journal of Family Business Strategy.

Their article, “Fusing family and firm: Employee perceptions of perceived homophily, organizational justice, organization identification, and organizational commitment in family businesses,” grew out of the communication department’s Summer Scholars Program.

The article examines social identity theory as it relates to family businesses and explores the organizational identification of non-family member employees. Based on previous research, it seems likely that, for family business employees, organizational identification mediates the relationship between organizational justice, homophily and commitment. The study proposes a model of identification for family business employees based on these considerations.