SAMINT-MILI 2025

TVE-Number

Master’s Thesis 30 credits

Master’s Thesis 30 credits

Month Year

Month Year

Organizational Values in a Family-Owned

Aquatic Center A Case Study

Organizational Values in a Family-Owned

Aquatic Center: A Case Study

A Neo-Institutionalist view on the influence of

meaning systems, as manifested by organizational

values, in a Family-Owned Aquatic Center

A Neo-Institutionalist view on the influence of

meaning systems, as manifested by organizational

values, in a Family-Owned Aquatic Center.

Ernesto Hoyos de la Garza

Master’s Programme in Industrial Management and Innovation

Masterprogram i industriell ledning och innovation

trial Management and Innovation

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Abstract

Organizational Values in a Family-Owned

Aquatic Center: A Case Study

Organizational Values in a Family-Owned

Aquatic Center: A Case Study

Ernesto Hoyos de la Garza

The main objective of this case study is to understand how organizational values

of a family business are influenced – or are the outcome of – the interactions

between the controlling family, their employees, and the social context by which

they are surrounded. To investigate this topic a case study research design was

applied and a family-owned and -managed Aquatic Center was selected as the

company in focus. First, the organizational values were determined through the

application of semi-structured interviews and observations. The units of analysis

for the case study were the Top Management Team (TMT) and the employees

of the organization. The former is composed by three members of the controlling

family and the latter by the employees who are in most contact with the TMT

and the clients of the Aquatic Center. After the Thematic Analysis of the

empirical data eight organizational values were identified. These organizational

values, along with excerpts from the interview, were analyzed from a

Neo-Institutionalist lens and three meaning systems were identified to be

influencing the organization and its structures. These three meaning systems

were labeled as (1) Swimming the Sport; (2) Health Club Business; and (3) The

Owning Family. The set of rules, enforcement mechanisms, and effects that

these three meaning systems have on the overall organization were also defined.

Supervisor: Ernesto M. Hoyos Pescador

Subject reader: Peter Birch

Examiner: David Sköld

SAMINT-MILI 2025

Printed by: Uppsala Universitet

Supervisor: Ernesto M. Hoyos Pescador

Subject reader: Peter Birch

Faculty of Science and Technology

Visiting address:

Ångströmlaboratoriet

Lägerhyddsvägen 1

House 4, Level 0

Postal address:

Box 536

751 21 Uppsala

Telephone:

+46 (0)18 – 471 30 03

Telefax:

+46 (0)18 – 471 30 00

Web page:

http://www.teknik.uu.se/student-en/

Faculty of Science and Technology

Visiting address:

Ångströmlaboratoriet

Lägerhyddsvägen 1

House 4, Level 0

Postal address:

Box 536

751 21 Uppsala

Telephone:

+46 (0)18 – 471 30 03

Telefax:

+46 (0)18 – 471 30 00

Web page:

http://www.teknik.uu.se/student-en/

ii

Acknowledgements

I do not consider myself as a person who is good or even comfortable when it comes to the art of the

written word. Especially when it comes to words that attempt to describe feelings. Feelings of gratitude,

appreciation and accomplishment. Feelings with which I find myself identified at this stage of my life,

therefore, without much gallantry or eloquence, I will simply say, “Thank you”.

Thanks for my family – with all its Mexican meaning – for placing their trust in me. I would not be here

if it wasn’t for their support and effort. Given that life is pretty much the summation of one’s decisions

in addition to the decisions of others, I must admit that without those “others” I would have probably

taken a different path.

Thanks to the MILI program, faculty, fellow students, and my friends for granting me the opportunity

to learn and to broaden my mind with an enriching – perhaps a bit more cynical – perspective of life

and the subtle structures that conforms it. Thanks for pushing my limits, thanks for the feedback, and

thanks for the ride.

With special dedication to Fidel Benigno Hoyos Hoyos

(1931-2020)

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Popular Science Summary

This case study employs Neo-Institutional Theory (NIT) to understand how organizational values

influence and are influenced by the owning family, its employees and the social context that surround

the organization in a Hybrid Identity Organization.

To understand how the organizational values interact within the organization it was first important to

identify them. This was done through two qualitative methods, semi-structured interviews and

observations, and from a constructivist and interpretivist approach. These methods and epistemological

and ontological points of view upon reality were selected due to the social nature of the matters that

were involved. The view of social reality, which this paper follows, is that of one that is in continuous

construction and reconstruction and one that is subject to the interpretation of each the social actor.

Meaning that each of the employees, TMT members, and the researcher all have particular views upon

the social context by which they are surrounded. Thus, the objective of the thesis was to define the

organizational values that, on average, represent the view of all the members of the Aquatic Center.

Organizational values are important to understand because they are one of the most important

characteristics of organizational culture. Understanding these values can aid in understanding what

drives the day-to-day operation of an organization, in this case, an Aquatic Center. In regard to this

particular case, these values, as you will be able to read in this thesis, are intrinsically linked to the

identity of family firms. They serve as reference points for present and future decision-makers, whether

they are employees or future family members. Defining the organizational values is particularly

important for an organization, such as the one in focus, given that there is more than one institutional

logic influencing the organization. Thus, this Aquatic Center can be categorized as a Hybrid Identity

Organization given that there are, at least, three identifiable institutional logics exerting their effect on

the Aquatic Center

These three meaning systems are (1) Swimming the Sport; (2) Health Club Business; and (3) The

Owning Family. Each meaning system has their own set of regulative, constitutive, and normative rules

which, along with their particular enforcement mechanisms, push change and influence the behavior of

the members of the organization. These systems helped to create the organizational values which

characterize the Aquatic Center. Some can be clearly linked, for example, to the Owning Family

institution, such as Discipline and Flexibility, and other values like the Need of a Development Plan and

Expertise (Know-How) can be linked to the Swimming the Sport institution.

The application of NIT was helpful to understand how these meaning systems have influenced and

continue to influence the Aquatic Center and the behavior of its member. Finally, from an academic

and, for that matter, practical perspective I would argue that NIT has good concepts and structures to

understand the past and present of HIO’s given the number of identities which characterize this

organizations.

Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................................. i

Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................... ii

Popular Science Summary ................................................................................................................ iii

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Background and Problem Statement ................................................................................... 1

1.2 Aim and Purpose of the Thesis ........................................................................................... 2

1.3 Research Design and Methodology..................................................................................... 3

1.4 Limitations ......................................................................................................................... 4

2. Literature Review ...................................................................................................................... 6

2.1 Family Business: Definition and Characteristics ................................................................. 6

2.2 Organizational Studies in Family Business Research .......................................................... 7

2.2.1 Importance of Family Businesses in Organizational Studies............................................... 7

2.2.2 Organizational Culture in Family Business ........................................................................ 8

3. Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................................ 11

3.1 Neoinstitutional Theory .................................................................................................... 11

3.2 Sociological Institutionalism .................................................................................................. 12

4. Research Design and Methodology .......................................................................................... 15

4.1 Case Study Design ........................................................................................................... 15

4.2 Epistemology and Ontology ............................................................................................. 16

4.3 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 18

4.3.1 Semi-Structured Interviews and Ethnographic Approach ................................................. 19

4.3.2 Purposive Sampling ........................................................................................................ 22

4.3.3 Thematic Analysis........................................................................................................... 22

4.3.4 Applying the Methodology .............................................................................................. 23

4.3.5 Disposition ...................................................................................................................... 25

5. Identifying the Organizational Values ..................................................................................... 26

5.1 The Values of the Top Management Team ......................................................................... 26

5.2 The Values of the Employees ............................................................................................. 26

5.3 The Organizational Values of the Aquatic Center ............................................................... 27

6. Value Interaction within the Organization ................................................................................ 30

6.1 Swimming the Sport ......................................................................................................... 30

6.2 Health Club Business / Wellness Center ........................................................................... 32

6.3 The Owning Family ......................................................................................................... 34

6.4 The Aquatic Center .......................................................................................................... 36

7. Discussion ............................................................................................................................... 41

7.1 Addressing the Research Questions .................................................................................. 41

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7.2 Implications ........................................................................................................................... 42

7.3 Limitations ............................................................................................................................ 43

8. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 45

8.1 Organizational Values and The Power of Multiple Institutional Logics ................................... 45

8.2 Contributions and Further Research ....................................................................................... 46

9. REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 48

Appendix ........................................................................................................................................ 54

Appendix A ................................................................................................................................. 54

Appendix B ................................................................................................................................. 57

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1. Introduction

1.1 Background and Problem Statement

Family Businesses, as will be further explained, are among the most common types of companies in the

world and, while there are in virtually every industry, they are considered to be inherently different to

their non-family businesses counterparts. Given the importance of this type of companies it was

surprising that there is not much research to be found that involves Organizational Behavior theories

applied in Family Business research. The thesis’ particular focus is to understand how organizational

values in a family business are influenced or are the product of the social interactions between the

owning family, its employees and the surrounding forces that are present in everyday life.

There was an initial attempt to understand this issue by looking at existing literature, however, the

literature that addresses organizational values in Family Business research seems to focus on how these

values are correlated to the performance of family businesses and not to how these originate or are

influenced by different entities. Consequently, the research continued by looking at Organization

Behavior theories to see if there was or not literature that addresses this particular issue. It was then

when I noticed that there was a research gap between Organization Behavior theories and Family

Business research. To add research that aims to address this particular research gap a case study design,

focused in a particular family business, was selected.

The thesis focuses on the case study of a Mexican family-owned and managed Aquatic Center. The

company belongs to my family. The top management team (TMT) is comprised by my father and two

of my aunts. My father oversees Operations, my two aunts oversee Administration, however, they all

discuss and decide upon strategy and future growth together. I, personally, have worked before in the

company (for about 10-12 months). My main role was that of project management primarily focused in

Maintenance and Operations. The limitations that my position entails within the thesis will be further

described in this section.

The company was founded 16 years ago in 2004. It started as a single site Aquatic Center which opened

from 6am to 10pm and employed around 4 full-time employees with one semi-olympic size pool

(25meter pool). The main program offered was swimming for adults, high-performance athletes, and

swimming lessons for children. Its growth began with the addition of a smaller swimming pool on the

same site for extra swimming programs and has now grown to three sites with a fourth on its way, all

within the same metropolitan area. It now employs around 30 full-time employees all year-round and

during summer there are between 15 and 25 additional part-time employees.

The company’s directors, in this case the TMT, main concern is to analyze the organizational values,

as a manifestation of organizational culture (Schein, 2017), that are present in the company. This

concern makes the Aquatic Center an ideal case study to attempt and answer the problems that guide

this research. Both academia and the case company will benefit from this study. The TMT’s main

concern is that the company, judging by their own past experiences, is in an opportune time to focus on

understanding the forces that influence the organization’s day-to-day operations. The company could

be categorized as Small Medium Enterprise (SME). To begin analyzing organizational values the thesis

will first focus on understanding the current literature on the subject, which will be briefly explained in

this section and more thoroughly on the Literature Review. Second, in identifying which are

organizational values present. Third, understanding these values through the context in which the

company operates and how they interact with its members (family or TMT, employees, and customers).

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Organizational Culture has been part of organizational studies for more than 40 years (e.g. Gagné et al.,

2014; Dyer, 2003; Le Breton-Miller et al., 2014). As it will be mentioned in the Literature Review,

Watson & Kroczynski (2011) defined organizational culture as a set of meanings and values shared by

members of an organization which set the accepted ways for people of the organization to reach the

organization’s goals while interacting with one another. The reason the main focus is on organizational

values is because they are one of the most important manifestations of organizational culture (Schein,

2017). Customer focused strategies, commitment to sustainable processes, employee-oriented

organizations, for example, may be linked to organizational values that promote loyalty, social

responsibility, and justice. These organizational values, thus, act as reference points from which

strategies, structures, and – to some extent – organizational culture can be created and/or maintained

(Ward, 2008; Athanassiou et al., 2002).

In the next section values will be defined, according to Rokeach (1973), as a socially preferable goal or

path to reach a goal and, given that the organization was defined as involving social and technical

arrangements between a group of people (Watson & Krozcynski, 2011), understanding the social aspect

and technical rigidities that are involved in an organization would be beneficial to understanding the

context in which the organizational values play their role. One of these arrangements includes the

position of the family as the TMT, the employees, and the customers which all interact within the

organization. The family, according to different studies, has an important influence in the way values

are assimilated and maintained in an organization (e.g. Sorenson, 2014; Gagné et al., 2014; Rau et al.,

2019). An influence that has been analyzed through different theories with the purpose of defining the

role of the family within the Family Business (FB) context (e.g. Rau et al., 2019; Athanassiou et al.,

2002; Dyer, 2003, Sharma 2004). A context that many scholars consider to be objectively distinct than

their non-family counterparts (e.g. Gagné et al., 2014, Rau et al., 2019; Astrachan, 2010). A distinction

based on the value-driven nature of FB (Rau et al., 2019), their – sometimes – non-financial goal

orientation (Astrachan, 2010; Le Breton-Miller & Miller, 2013), and their frequent long-term

perspective (Le Breton-Miller & Miller, 2006) whether it is either by relying on their networks or long-

term relationships (Carney, 2005).

1.2 Aim and Purpose of the Thesis

The aim of the thesis, as explained before, is to understand how organizational values in family business

are influenced by the owning family, its members, and different external forces. Nevertheless, the

academic purpose of the thesis consists of two main points, (1) addressing a gap of research between

Organizational Behavior (OB) Studies and the Family Business context and (2) the application of

Organizational Behavior theories, specifically Neoinstitutionalism Theory, as a theoretical frame to

explain and understand the issue that drives this thesis.

Addressing the lack of OB studies within FB is well documented (e.g. Gagné et al., 2014, Dyer, 2003,

Litz, 1997). Although FB studies is, by itself, a growing field of research, as exemplified with the

creation of some journals to be mentioned in the Literature Review, organizational behavior journals

have mostly neglected FB from their main journals (Dyer, 2003). According to Dyer (2003), this

neglection of the family from organizational research may stem from the long-lasting interest in the

performance of organizations and the variables that are measured to determine its efficiency. Even going

so far as to describe that family relations may be seen as “antithetical to good business practices” (Dyer,

2003, p. 403). Litz (1997) proposes also different reasons to explain this gap of research with different

reasons, such as, the amount of information available on large public companies, greater cooperation

from large corporations, and the belief of better personal or institutional rewards for studying large

public companies.

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Some applications of OB theories within a FB context have been made and the studies in which they

were applied have produced new insights (e.g. Chrisman et al., 2004; Gomez-Mejía et al., 2001; Schulze

et al. 2001). According to Jensen & Meckling (1976), agency costs should be lower where the interests

of owners and managers are aligned, context in which a family-owned and managed company should –

assumingly – operate. However, in a study of 276 family-controlled and non-family controlled Spanish

newspapers Gomez-Mejía et al. (2001) argued that adding family as a variable raises agency costs due

to the familial ties that influence decisions and oversight – e.g. the firing of a family CEO or granting

unusual generosity with family resources to relatives (Shulze et al., 2001). These comparative studies

both help to create new insight within agency cost theories just by applying the concept in a FB context.

This is but one example of how applying OB within a FB can aid in the generalizability of said theories.

To address the issue of analysing the organizational values of the company, in practical terms, the

research will have to focus on determining which are the current organizational values within the FB

and how they interact within a hybrid identity organization. To determine the former it will be necessary

to segment the company in its main groups, which are the family and the employees – the customers

were also initially considered but due to the outbreak of COVID19 it was not possible – and identifying

the main channels through which they interact. The latter, however, implies a much more abstract aspect

involved human relationships and individual perceptions. Therefore, the questions that will guide this

research will appear to be broad but, nevertheless, will serve as a reference point for this thesis. These

research questions are:

1. How do organizational values of a family-owned and -managed business influence a Hybrid

Identity Organization? 2. How can Neo Institutional Theory be applied to understand the different identities that are

part of Hybrid Identity Organizations?

1.3 Research Design and Methodology

The methodological approach will mainly involve qualitative methods because of the interpretative nature

of the subject of this thesis. The main qualitative methods that will be used are semi-structured interviews

and observations. Although these concepts will be expanded upon in their own section I found it appropriate

to introduce them now with the intention of better describing the nature of the research questions and the

problems which this thesis attempts to answer.

The semi-structured interviews have the intention to guide the topic of the interview while still letting the

interviewee talk more freely during their reply (Bryman & Bell, 2011). The interview guide is divided in

three main sections which are (1) past work experiences, (2) present work experiences, and (3) community

experience. The objective is to understand what they have lived through in previous companies, their likes,

dislikes, their experiences in those companies, what they are experiencing in this Aquatic Center, and how

they experience their community life all from their own perspective. The same flexible structure will be

employed for the controlling family.

The main limitation with the semi-structure interview may be interviewer bias because of my position in

the company and their capability to explain their experiences. The former will be described more on the

end of this section. The latter has to do with the interviewee’s ability to connect to deeper insights than

merely explain processual interactions. To avoid superficial answers the interviewee may be subject to

questions that are not included in the interview guide in order to pick upon things said that might be

interesting to follow-up on (Bryman & Bell, 2011). Nevertheless, the interview questions will be similarly

worded and similarly asked through the interviews.

Regarding the observations, the approach that will be used in this thesis will be overt, meaning that the

subjects will know they will be observed (Bryman & Bell, 2011), and will include informal

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conversations as well as observations that may not require conversation. The overt approach was

selected because most of the employees will also be interviewed, thus, they will be aware that the study

is taking place. The results of the data obtained through observations will aid the results of the

interviews with the objective of complementing the information and/or identifying if there is a possible

contradiction between the results of the interviews and observations. Field notes will be transcribed as

soon as it is possible but not later than at the end of the day in which the observation took place, this as

a recommendation proposed by Bryman & Bell (2011). There is enough space to privately write about

the interactions that take place during said observations. The same type of observations will be used

when observing the controlling family.

1.4 Limitations

The ethical concerns are based on Bryman & Bell’s (2011) Ethical Principles which involve (1) harm

to participants, (2) lack of informed consent, (3) invasion of privacy, and (4) deception. For most of

these principles ensuring anonymity would avoid potential ethical dilemmas. Given the nature of the

interviews and that the interviewees may or may not criticize aspects or even members of the

organization, anonymity is crucial, as is letting the interviewees review the material that will be used

for the thesis. To address these ethical standpoints, it has been made clear to the interviewees that their

information will be anonymously codified and that there will be a call-back for them to approve the use

of what they said and, finally, every digital recording will be deleted once the thesis is approved.

Therefore, no information will be kept but that which makes it to the final version of the thesis.

Regarding the invasion of privacy and deception, the latter will be addressed by clearly defining the

objective of the research which is to analyze the organizational values of the company. In addition, the

results of the thesis will be presented to them at a later stage (after thesis approval), when I get back to

Mexico. This with the intention of formally showing them the end-product of their input. The main

concern of the former is regarding the information that they may or may not be consciously disclosing

during informal conversations. If that is the case and there is any information from the conversations

that they prefer to be omitted they can choose to do so during the call-back session.

One of the most important limitations of the study is the role I play – as a researcher and as a member

of the owning family – and how I may influence the behavior and answers of the interviewees or

subjects. Also, it is important to recognize that the bias may not be only one-way, e.g. from interviewee

to interviewer, but also how I may be biased in thinking one way or another about a certain event due

to comments of the TMT or my past experiences with them. To address my possible bias the results

will be strictly analyzed following methodological guidelines in a strict way which will be described in

their own section. Nevertheless, this particular limitation will be addressed and should be remembered

throughout the thesis.

Alongside the disadvantages, however, there are also advantages that come along with my position as

a researcher and as a member of the owning family. According to Bryman & Bell (2011), building

rapport is important in observational studies since the subjects would feel normal with my presence and

during interactions. Some of the employees have known me since before the company was founded

because of my background as a former swimmer. While others interacted thoroughly with me since I

was a swimming instructor in the company from the age of 13 until the end of my bachelor studies.

Another important advantage of my position is the full access that I am granted, both to employees and

the TMT, enabling more data to be gathered and better insights. Even entering special events, such as

swimming competitions, employee meetings, TMT meetings, etc., would be feasible and

inconspicuous. And finally being part of the organization or, in this case the owning family, also helps

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me see the whole picture to eventually understand the culture of the organization (Alvesson, 2003), by

having been part of their conversations, their interactions, and their work, which is part of what an

ethnographer aims to accomplish.

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2. Literature Review

2.1 Family Business: Definition and Characteristics

The term Family Business (FB), as is common in social sciences, is defined in different ways and with

different points of emphasis, thus, it is complicated to articulate a concise definition (Sharma et al.,

2014). When considering the different types of FBs, Sharma et al. (2014) cites Lansberg et al. (1988)

says, “[Is it a Family Business when] A business is owned by a family but run by non-family manager.

A business is owned by a large, multi-national corporation but run by a local family. A business is

jointly owned by two unrelated partners, each of whom has a son in the business. Are these all family

businesses?” (p. 1). Some scholars base their definition of a FB based on ownership, governance, family

involvement in managerial decisions, succession, or a combination of these. The influence of the family

in the business and business in the family, however, seems to be considered as an important factor for

classifications (Holt et al., 2010). Although the aim and purpose of this study is not to resolve or propose

a general definition of a FB, it is still important to bear in mind that this research will simply follow a

general definition for the entire thesis.

Therefore, the general definition of FB that will be considered throughout this thesis will be, as

described by Gagné et al. (2014), as a business in which the controlling family has a significant

influence on the business of the firm. Family taking the definition proposed by Rothausen (1999), as

social groups within which members are “related by marriage, biology, or adoption, as well as people

related through affection, obligation, dependence or cooperation” (p. 820). The definition previously

described may seem to detail a one-directional influence between family and business, but this is not

the case as will be explained further on through the existing literature on the subject.

There seems to be a “virtually unanimous” agreement between researchers from different fields of study

that non-family businesses and family businesses are “conceptually and qualitatively” different from

each other (Gagné et al., 2014: p. 643; referring to Gomez-Mejía et al. 2011). This difference, according

to Rau et al. (2019), has to do with the values in the controlling family. As opposed to Top Management

Teams (TMT) in non-family companies the controlling family in a FB has nurtured and incorporated

values to its particular group during their upbringing, their education, through their role models, and

through social norms that have been maintained through long periods of times (Rau et al., 2019). These

interactions and experiences foster strong cohesive values that seem to remain stable over adult life

(Gehman et al., 2013; Klein, 1991). The TMTs of non-family companies, on the other hand, seem to

have been raised unrelated to one another, following different role models, with different social norms,

and with different views (Rau et al., 2019). Additionally, to the previous upbringing characteristics,

TMTs of non-family businesses tend to have a shorter amount of time to interact with one another as

opposed to controlling families. This last point has an effect in the fostering or defining of joint values

(Cruz et al., 2010; Boling et al., 2016) and will be discussed further on a different section.

Another important difference between FB and non-family firms is the constraints that come with the

hybrid identity nature of the organization. According to Whetten et al. (2014), a hybrid identity

organization (HIO) is that which mixes two different forms of organization that would be normally

thought to be mutually exclusive (e.g. Salvation Army and Social Entrepreneurs). Distinguishing

between HIO and an organization with multiple identities – e.g. conglomerates or business associations

– is not the main concern of this study but, nevertheless, it is related. This secondary concern, as it may

be described, aids in understanding that there are different institutional logics or meaning systems that

are involved in the Aquatic Center, which also happens to be a FB, that will be analyzed through a

7

Neoinstitutional Lens (theory that will be developed in its own section). Thus, HIOs require a brief

introduction and explanation.

In order to distinguish between HIO and cases of organizations with more than one identity, such as

conglomerates and business associations, Albert et al.’s (1998) proposes his “3I’s” approach

(incompatible, indispensible, and inviolate). The first “I”, is based on the incompatibility of the two (in

case of the common FB) types of social forms, in our case the family and business, that tend to have

conflicting interests. For example, FBs that are organized to align the “competing expectations” of

having both the identity of a business and that of a family (Whetten et al. 2014, ch. 24, p. 7).

The second “I”, is the indispensability of both identities for the organization. When a multiple identity

firm, in this case a non-family firm, has opposing identities (e.g. high quality and low-cost

manufacturer) the nature of the market tends to single out one of those identities and the organization

tends to survive. On the other hand, FB cannot stop treating family as family and operating the business

as a business because failing to meet those expectations may prove fatal for the internal and external

workings of the company (Whetten et al., 2014).

Finally, the third “I”, the identities of HIO are inviolable. This means that the identities of the

organization should reflect the social expectations which their identities carry. Failure to meet these

expectations – these values, norms, and practices – will risk an identity crisis for the company which

could be detrimental for the organization as it may lose its legitimacy (Whetten et al., 2014). For

example, if a pharmaceutical company (e.g. Purdue) fails to meet expectations set by law and society

they might face charges and lawsuits, but they will not cease to be identified as a pharmaceutical

company. While an HIO, like a health care provider, faces an obligation to meet both, a low-cost

profitable company identity and to provide a high quality treatment for their patients, failing to meet

any of those identities would, at least, produce the demise of the organization as it is known.

Understanding what a Family Business is and how does it differ from a Non-Family Businesses is, by

itself, a contended, yet clear area of study with clear definitions and concepts and even though this study

is not deliberately attempting to add to these debates, it indeed supports itself with the already defined

core characteristics of a Family Business. Particularly important is to understand that any FB will have

at least two institutional logics – the family logic and the commercial logic – that influence the structures

of the organization and the behavior of its members.

2.2 Organizational Studies in Family Business Research

2.2.1 Importance of Family Businesses in Organizational Studies

Family Businesses represent a large majority of all organizations in the world (La Porta et al., 1991). In

the U.S. they represent around 90% of all the tax returns, 65% of the GDP, and employ around 62% of

the total employed population (Astrachan & Shanker, 2003). Referring to a study from Heck & Trent

(1999) and Heck & Stafford (2002), Sharma (2004), indicates that the influence of U.S. family firms in

1996 can be shown through the gross revenue that they generated which was between $1.3-10.4 trillion

USD. In Mexico, after the signing of the NAFTA agreement, even though a few multinational

corporations caught the media’s attention, family firms retained control in major industrial fields and

continued to have a strong influence and power over the Mexican economy (Athanassiou et al., 2002).

In their article, Athanassiou et al. (2002), about the effects of founder centrality in FBs, they claim that

98% of small- to medium-sized companies in Mexico are family controlled and represent around 50%

of the country’s total workforce and around 45% of all manufacturing revenues. According to IFERA

(2003), family firms are not only comprised of SMEs since the majority of the top 250 largest listed

8

companies in France and in Germany are family-owned and between 60% and 90% of all companies in

the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, the U.K., Spain, Sweden, Finland, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, France,

and Germany are family firms.

Given the information stated in the previous paragraph it is reasonable to conclude that FBs have a

substantial role in the world’s economy. The economic weight which this type of organization carries

deserves special attention with its own given field. There are already scientific journals such as the

Family Business Review, the Journal of Family Business Strategy, the Journal of Family Business

Management, and different business and management journal with special issues that focusing on FBs.

However, there is still a gap between Organizational Studies and Family Business which if filled would

be fruitful for both fields (Gagné et al., 2014; Dyer, 2003; Martinez & Aldrich, 2014). According to

Gagné et al. (2014), Organizational Behavior theories (within Organizational Studies) would be

particularly benefited if its theories were to be applied within a Family Business context. They would

be able to help argue in favor of their generalizability independently from their context while FBs would

be gain from deeper FB-focused research that would aid in understanding its specific context (Gagné et

al., 2014).

The diverse characteristics of the controlling family that were previously described based on Rau et

al.’s (2019) and the influential position of the family in the organization – an organization which does

not live in isolation and is described to have its own culture and identity (Watson & Korczynski, 2011;

Schein, 2017; Whetten et al., 2014) – should be enticing territory for organizational behavior scholars

to test their theories. More so when you consider that an organization, as defined by Watson &

Korczynski (2011), is a social and technical arrangement between a group of people in a formalized

and contractual relationships under a power structure where actions of some are directed by others to

achieve tasks in the organization’s name. Whether people are working in groups or alone they inevitably

show signs of behavior – at an individual level, interpersonal, or at the organization level – and since

these behaviors will be strongly influenced by the family OB scholars should examine it. Even if the

outcome of the research may shine a light at weak points of different theories – and they are likely to

be different from non-family firms research (Gagné et al., 2014) – these differences could eventually

add-up to new understandings and/or interpretations of different phenomena.

2.2.2 Organizational Culture in Family Business

Although there has been a general neglection of FB in major OB journals (Dyer, 2003), there has indeed

been some research that focused on FB. Particularly important for this thesis is that of organizational

culture within a family business context. Organizational Culture has been part of Organizational Studies

for more than 40 years and could be defined as a set of meanings and values that are shared by members

of an organization which set the appropriate (accepted) ways for people to think and behave in regards

to the organization (Watson & Korczynski, 2011). Organizational culture is a distinguishing factor

between FB and the non-family counterparts, as Rau et al. (2019) explain, the strong ties within the

family foster an environment for strong value creation and also provide the opportunity to turn these

ties to positive economic output (e.g. lower transactional costs due to ease of communication or like-

mindedness between family members) (Martinez & Aldrich, 2020).

Defining Organizational Culture within a company is something that has been researched and some

theories have been developed, one of which will be employed as theoretical framework to analyze this

case. However, there is a special interest among scholars to focus on a specific manifestation of

organizational culture and this is organizational values (e.g., Gagné et al., 2014; Rau et al., 2019;

Sorenson, 2014, Sharm & Nordqvist, 2008). Scholars tend to define these values based on Rokeach’s

definition (1973) which states that values are beliefs and taken-for-granted assumptions that one’s goal

9

or the way in which one reaches that goal is personally or sociably preferable than another. In the case

for organizational values the same logic applies but instead of the self it is the organization’s goal(s)

and its member’s preferred method of achieving it.

Scholars see values as one of the most important characteristics of the FBs. This could be understood

because there has been links to the organizational values of a FB to its performance (Rau et al., 2019)

and because these organizational values tend to act as a reference point for decisions not only for the

family but for the employees of the organization (Kotlar et al., 2014). These reference points or

organizational values – also identified in Gehman et al.’s (2013) – play a crucial role in the strategy,

the structure, and the culture of the FB organization (Ward, 2008). These values are the result of the

family’s influence and this provides the FB firm with a unique identity (Craig et al., 2008; Rau et al.,

2019) that is central to the organization and – given the long-term perspective that characterizes FBs

(Le Breton-Miller & Miller, 2006) – will endure for a considerable amount of time (Albert & Whetten,

1985).

FB identity has been researched using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative methods

have focused on questionnaire approaches to identify values, such as Schwartz (1992), who identified

different value clusters and how they interact with one another. Although his approach was positivistic

and universally focused, researchers like García-Alvarez & Lopes-Sintas (2001) have used such models

to examine value clusters in family businesses. There has been measures of social capital within family

firms (e.g. Coleman, 1988; Hoffman et al., 2006), development of scales that attempt to measure the

consistency of values within families and between them and their businesses (Astrachan et al., 2003),

and use of different research streams, for example, GLOBE research, to answer questions regarding the

influence of national cultures in family firms and how these may influence and may measure long-term

aspects involved in family businesses (House et al., 2005).

Qualitative methods have also been used to address how values influence family firm decision making

(Kotlar & De Massis, 2013). Particularly important in FB is the employment of multiple data sources,

for example, interviews, observations, ethnographical data, etc., given the strength that different

methods provide to construct our understanding of a FB’s social reality (Patton, 1990; De Massis &

Kotlar, 2014). Although it may seem unsurprising that the most used qualitative methods in FB, for

example, interviews and observations, are also the most frequently used in other research fields, it is

important to note that in FB these insights are usually then employed in the development of quantitative

methods that aim to measure how the values of the family influence the strategic long-term decision-

making of the organization.

Whether they are measured by quantitative or qualitative methods, values are seen as identifying

characteristics of a FB, this is not to say that values do not form part of a non-family business, but in

the case of FB the family institutional logic tends to have interacted and socialized with each other

longer than a commercial logic as would be the case with most non-family businesses (Sorenson, 2014;

Rau et al., 2019). Hence, family values play a more influential role in shaping a FB than they would in

a non-family business – there is, of course, a difference in how much influence these values have

depending on how much communication and interaction a family has with its business (Sorenson,

2014).

The effect of the controlling family’s values on the FB is well studied both quantitatively and

qualitatively as can be understood in the previous paragraphs. Although there seems to be a general

understanding as to where the values originate and if there is a transfer of these through the interaction

between family members and the employees of the organization (e.g., Dyer, 2003; James et al., 2012;

Arregle et al., 2007; Albert & Whetten, 1985), there is still a lack of research as to how these values

10

affect interactions and behaviors within the organization, within its relationships, and within the family.

This thesis aims to address these questions and hopefully to add new insights.

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3. Theoretical Framework

3.1 Neoinstitutional Theory

Neoinstitutional theory (NIT) will be used as theoretical framework to answer how the organizational

values of the family-owned and -managed Aquatic Center are influenced and influence the owning

family, the members and the social reality of the organization – members referring to the TMT and the

employees who have the most contact with the clients. The purpose as to why this theory was chosen

has to do with the field of which it is part of, Organizational Behavior Theory, and because of the hybrid

identity nature of the organization in study, the Aquatic Center, which we will see that it has interesting

properties, and because the organization’s of the Family Business aspect – family being considered as

one of the great institutions (Scott, 2001). Thus, by apparent reasons we can assume that there could be

different forces at play that may be analyzed through a NIT lens.

NIT, as its name conveys, revolves around the study of institutions and how these interact with one

another, with different organization structures, and influence the daily life of the individual (Miner,

2011). According to Scott & Meyer (1994), institutions are cultural rules giving collective meaning and

value to specific entities and activities, which may or may not integrate to larger systems. In this

definition, meaning entails a purpose that is created by the individuals that are part of the institution and

by surrounding institutions. Institutions have the capacity to assimilate, influence, legitimize, and/or

delegitimize other institutions and organization structures (Miner, 2011; Scott & Meyer, 1994;

DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Thus, creating a dynamic where organizations, organizational structures –

organizational fields for that matter – and institutions both affect each other.

There are three different streams that are commonly defined as part of NIT: Historical Institutionalism,

Rational Institutionalism, and Sociological Institutionalism. All of them attempt to understand how

institutions affect the behavior of individuals, which are part of organizations, however, they explain

the relationships that revolve around the individual in different ways (Diogo et al., 2015). According to

Diogo et al. (2015), these three streams focus on explaining the sustaining mechanisms that institutions

use over time while also taking into account external forces that may influence or push institutions to

change. These external forces can be accounted as being part of the environment that surround

institutions, organizations, and individuals (Meyer et al., 2008). There are different ways to understand

how these external entities affect the behavior of individuals but that depends on the stream of NIT that

is applied. One could argue that the main differences between these streams of NIT relate to what

prompts institutional change.

Historical Insitutionalism (HI), according to Bevir (2009), focuses on explaining institutions by

analyzing the past, by looking at what makes them unique and by understanding the cause and effect

relationship by which they are involved. They claim that institutions resist change because “they embed

actor’s interests and also because institutions are implicated in actors’ cognitive frames and habits”

(Diogo et al., 2015, p.118). This implies that there is a certain staticity to institutional change, according

to HI, because radical disruption would be needed to change the interests and cognitive frames and

habits of the actors that form part of an institution. Rational Institutionalization (RI), as the name may

indicate, relies upon rational thinking. The main argument of RI is that the individuals or actors that are

part of the institutions make their decisions based on what is of his or her most utility (Diogo et al.,

2015). In this sense what drives the decision of the actors is efficiency, thus, if the institution needs to

change it will address the changes of preference from the actor. These changes do affect individual’s

choices and actions – as can be seen with changes in government policies – but they do not determine

them (Koelble, 1995). This seems to be also an importance difference, as opposed to having an actor

12

that is free to make rational choices in RI, in HI, the actors can not control their social, economic and

political environment because they are part of the system (Koelble, 1995), their environment and

institutions are already dependent on the paths taken in the past.

3.2 Sociological Institutionalism

Sociological Institutionalism (SI), according to March and Olsen (1989), claims that a logic of

appropriateness, and not solely rational thinking, is what guides individual behavior. This

appropriateness refers to the “cognitive and ethical dimensions, targets and aspirations” that guide

individuals to “fit” in an institution (Diogo et al., 2015, p.119). Thus, there is an important difference

in how actors make decisions, in RI, actors follow rational thinking and maximization of utiliy, while

in SI actors base their decisions based on norms of expected behavior or culturally-cognitive ideas. As

Koelble (1995 p.233) states, SI’s do not focus on “How do I maximize my interests in this situation?”

but rather, “What is the appropriate response to this situation given my position and responsabilities?”.

This appropriate is defined by a combination of representational, constitutive, and normative rules that

are part of the institution and are enforced upon the actors (Miner, 2011).

The specific stream of NIT that will be used as framework to analyze and answer the research questions

of this research is Sociological Institutionalism for the following reasons. One of the reasons is that this

stream of research fits well when it comes to analyzing organizational values. Organizational values, as

defined in previous sections, are taken-for-granted beliefs that a group of people share as to which is

the best path to achieve their goals (Rokeach, 1973). Besides they could be seen as normative or,

depending on the depth of the belief, culturaly-cognitive in nature, they are not “obligatory” as a law

would be (Miner, 2011). As Pietilä (2014) claims, it is important to achieve a normative compromise

between values and beliefs and the identities and traditions of actors in an organization. This view on

institutionalism has also the characteristic that it places institutional change, unlike HI or RI, in the

hands of the actors (DiMaggio, 1988), but this will be further discussed in this section. Another reason

has to do with how I, as researcher, view reality. As it will be explained in the Methodology section,

I’m defining – interpreting – social reality through what the members of the organization perceive as

the organizational values that characterize the Aquatic Center. Beliefs and values that have to do with

expected behaviors, cognitively held rules, and constitutively created rules.

In institutionalism institutions change due to a process of institutionalization, defined by Miner (2011,

p.253) as, “the process through which a given set of units and a pattern of activities come to be

normatively and cognitively held in place, so that they are taken for granted to be lawful – either as a

result of formal law, custom or knowledge”. This process of institutionalization, as can be seen in

Figure 1, is not unidirectional, it does exclusively travel from a larger system unto a smaller, both

entities help give meaning to each other (Miner, 2011; Scott & Meyer, 1994).

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Figure 1– A model of the Institutional Process (Scott & Meyer, 1994).

These institutional changes will affect the representational, constitutive, and normative rules that give

meaning to an institution or a meaning system and these changes will give rise to new social actors and

routines (Miner, 2011). This will be shown in the Analysis section of this research. Different meaning

systems with different social actors will be shown to influence the Aquatic Center and its organizational

structure. According to Scott & Meyer (1994), representational (cultural-cognitive) rules involve shared

modes of reasoning that develops into a shared understanding of reality (e.g. the belief in law that

everyone is created equal), constitutive rules are those who create social actors that are linked to specific

behaviors (e.g. husband/wife, teacher, politician), and normative rules are those that are internalized

and reinforced by actors and by the beliefs and actions of those with whom they interact (e.g.

socialization practices like shaking hands when greeting or saying “thanks” and “you are welcome”).

The previous rules are created and/or changed through three different processes: cognitive processes

based on the logic of orthodoxy which establish representational rules and are legitimized when they

are culturally accepted; normative processes based on a logic of appropriateness which establish

normative rules and are legitimized as they become morally governed; and regulative processes based

on a logic of instrumentality which establish constitutive rules and are legitimized when they become

sanctioned (Miner, 2007; Scott, 2001). See Table 1 for a summary of these processes.

As opposed to HI and RI institutionalism, in SI change is not a product of some radical extemporary

disruption or is only triggered by actors looking for utility maximization. SI identifies change as being

14

both being constantly created or renegotiated through interactions that may be the product of the effort

of political actors who are pursuing their own ends (DiMaggio, 1988). This change may be pushed

through different diffusion mechanisms: imitation or mimetic, normative, and coercive (see Table 1)

(DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Mimetic mechanisms draw on habitual and cultural-cognitive responses

to uncertainty, normative mechanisms draw on shared influences of past experiences such as

professions and education, and regulative mechanisms involve the force of laws, regulations and

policies (Powell, 2007). According to DiMaggio & Powell (1983) and Diogo et al. (2015), these three

mechanisms differ on their capacity to diffuse change given that they are generally held at different

levels of consciousness. If that is so, one could argue, that, for example, cultural-cognitive knowledge

is also harder to displace and substitute than it is to change a regulation.

Before continuing, let us recapitulate, diffusion mechanisms of change (mimetic, normative, and

coercive mechanisms) are employed through different cognitive, normative, and regulative processes

which they in turn change the cultural-cognitive, constitutive, and normative rules that give meaning to

an institution or meaning system. That would be a broad summary of what the process of

institutionalization is, but what would be the reason behind this process? Why do institutions, according

to Greenwood et al. (2008), tend to become more similar as they mature? This tendency may be linked

to legitimacy and to what entails to be legitimized (Powell, 2007). Legitimization is the process through

which a condition that reflects “cultural alignment, normative support, or consonance with relevant

rules or laws” is achieved (Scott, 2001, p.35). This condition is dependent on how each set of rules,

previously discussed, is legitimized (Powell, 2007). This legitimization provides institutions with

resources, stability, and increases its probability of survival (Meyer and Rowan, 1997). It is a way for

institution to prevent social censure, protect themselves against accountability, they help actors navigate

in moments of uncertainty by giving people rules and cultural scripts that they can follow (DiMaggio

& Powell, 1983; Meyer & Scott, 1983). That is why, according to Diogo et al. (2015), institutions may

acquire different organizational structures as “window dressing and not aimed at changing the

organizational status quo” (p.120). Efficiency may or may not be a reason for institutions to adopt

changes.

Table 1 – Characteristics of Cognitive, Normative, and Regulative Processes (Scott, 2001)

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4. Research Design and Methodology

4.1 Case Study Design

In the field of Management Research, one of the most commonly used research designs is that of the

Case Study (Bryman & Bell, 2011). Given the focus of this research which addresses a gap between

Organizational Behavior (OB) Studies and Family Business (FB) Studies by applying OB theories as a

theoretical framework within a specific FB setting this study will also follow a case study design. As

will be explained further on, a case study provides a flexible design through which different qualitative

methods can be combined thereby avoiding relying too much on one single approach (Knights &

McCabe, 1997).

As a general definition, proposed by Bryman & Bell (2011), a case study entails a detailed exploration

of a specific community, organization, person, or situation (i.e. case). As the definition states the case

is not bounded to a single form or entity but it is, however, bounded to a system or situation with both

purpose and functioning parts. According to Stake (1995), there are three different types of case studies

(1) the intrinsic case which focuses on gaining insights of the particularity of the situation; (2) the

instrumental case that focuses on using the case as a means to understanding a broader issue or

generalization to be challenged and; (3) the collective case that analyzed together explores a more

general phenomenon. While Stake (1995) differentiates between the previous types of cases he also

claims that the case studies rarely, if not ever, fit exactly one single type since the boundaries between

these are usually blurred.

The main reasons why this study follows a case study design are (1) the nature of the OB theories that

will be analyzed within a FB setting would benefit from a multiple qualitative methods approach as

Knights & McCabe (1997) explain. Of particular interest is employing neo-institutional theory to

explain/describe the interaction of organizational values and its members. Thus, the abstract

characteristics of values was inferred to entail more than one qualitative method to be described which,

in this case, where semi-structured interviews and observations. (2) The particular setting in which the

FB operates in is also interesting. It is an SME owned and managed by a family and it’s an aquatic

center, which can be identified to a HIO, in which direct and indirect clients spend a significant amount

of time. It’s basically a privately-owned aquatic center but the operation of it would be best described

as in a public setting. Therefore, employing OB theories in this particular FB setting will address a gap

in the research and may shed new insights or understanding to those OB theories. The case study will

focus on the employees that have the most connections between members of the organization and the

Top Management Team (TMT) as its main units of analysis.

As opposed to a deductive approach, this case study will feature an inductive approach. According to

Bryman & Bell (2011) this tends to be the most common approach when qualitative methods are used

in a case study design. This approach was chosen as more appropriate given the characteristics of the

academic purpose of this research. Purpose that, as explained above, attempts to employ OB theories in

an FB environment to fill-in a gap between research fields and, hopefully, gain new insights regarding

the theories employed. Parting with an initial idea of employing OB theories to explain the issues at

hand does not imply that those particular theories will guide the research nor that any hypotheses will

be tested. On the other hand, even though the aim of the study is not to create new theories, as it tends

to be with an inductive approach and even if it does “start from scratch” from a data analysis point of

view. There will not be any preconceived categories to guide the coding, interpretation, and analysis of

16

the data. The objective is to use existing OB theories as a theoretical framework to explain how

organizational values interact within the organization and its members. It could be argued that an

abductive approach could also have been suitable for this case study, however, given that the way the

topic of the study was problematized and the natural and unforeseen limitations of the thesis the

abductive approach was not chosen. These limitations will be further described in this section but in

regards to choosing an abductive approach the main issue was the amount of time available doing field

work and that the problematization already considered the use of OB theories as a theoretical framework

of this study.

According to Bryman & Bell (2011) reliability, replicability, and validity are greatly discussed among

researchers (e.g. Yin, 1984; Stake, 1995; Lee et al., 2007; Kanter, 1977). Some researchers such as Yin

(1984) claim that there are different ways in which case studies can be carried out to enhance its ability

to meet those criteria. Others, such as Lee et al. (2007), claim that ability to enhance those criteria using

ways such as Yin (1984) provide is dependent on the positivistic nature of the study. Now, as stated

before, this study employs qualitative methods in the search to answer its research questions. Although

the external validity of the results and their generalizability are directly impacted by the selection of

qualitative methods to address this study, they should not represent a problem given the epistemological,

ontological, and research design proposed for this study. As suggested by Lee et al. (2007) the aim of

the case study should not be generalization but particularization. The goal should be to gain a thorough

understanding of the case in question rather than being able to generalize its findings (Lee et al., 2007).

There is, however, a need for this study to add or shed new insights into existing OB theories and,

according to Bryman & Bell (2011), this has been done before in different case studies. For example,

Kanter (1977), claims that the knowledge gained from her case study enabled her to create and

understand concepts which she could apply afterwards in three other large corporations. Another

example would be that of Jack & Kholief (2007) in which they suggest case studies are good means of

refining and/or refuting existing theories. The purpose of the selected methods is to follow a similar

path to that explained by Lee et al. (2007), Bryman & Bell (2011), Kanter (1977), and Jack & Kholief

(2007) to generate new knowledge and increase the external validity of the results.

4.2 Epistemology and Ontology

For the creation of any study or research document it is important to have a clear standpoint regarding

the epistemological and ontological views from which the researcher analyzes his or her subject of

study. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies the theory of knowledge, of how it is

gathered, the methods employed in its search, its validity, and its scope. Ontology is the branch of

philosophy that deals with the nature of being, it focuses on what is reality, on what is our view of

reality. Thus, given that the ontological standpoint from the researcher will, generally, guide his or her

epistemological posture, the researcher should have a clear understanding of the implication this

concepts will have in selecting the adequate methods to address the research questions of the study.

However, particularly in social sciences, both these points are strongly debated because they can heavily

influence the direction, data, and analysis of results in sociological studies (Watson & Korczynski,

2011).

Two of the main epistemological points that are debated within sociological studies are positivism and

interpretivism (Watson & Korczynski, 2011; Bryman & Bell 2011). Positivism tends to be referred

when quantitative methods are employed in research. In social research it focuses on data collection as

a means to formulate laws that may be used to explain human behavior creating generalizations like

those of the natural sciences (Turner, 2001). It assumes that the natural and social world are not

17

fundamentally different and that similar methods can be employed to analyze it. Thus, in the case of

sociology through positivist methods, making social facts – rules, laws, or structures – the subject matter

of said field of study regardless of the people that are involved in the given context (Donaldson, 2003).

Interpretivism, on the other hand, in social sciences tends to be regarded as opposing positivism under

the main argument that the subject matter of social sciences – people and institutions – is fundamentally

different from that of the natural sciences – e.g. physics and chemistry (Bryman & Bell, 2011).

Nevertheless, both epistemological postures are used in social sciences, according to Watson &

Korczynski (2011), even the inventor of the word “sociology”, Auguste Comte, was an advocate for a

positivist sociology. It could be argued that human behavior, through a positivistic approach, has to do

with explaining superficially the social, interpersonal, and intrapersonal context that influence or

describes human behavior, while interpretivism attempts to understand why that context is, how it came

to be, and how it influences human behavior. As Schutz (1962: 59) states, “the world of nature as

explored by the natural sciences does not ‘mean’ anything to the molecules, atoms, and electrons… the

observational field of the social scientist – social reality – has a specific meaning and relevance structure

for the being, living, acting, and thinking within it – social actors.”. Given the previous fundamental –

and ontological – difference there is a need for a different approach toward researching social matters

that adequately addresses the reality of the subject of study.

Two of the most influential authors on interpretivism in social studies are Weber (1947: 88) and his

work Verstehen which defines sociology as a “science which attempts the interpretive understanding of

social action in order to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects” and Alfred Schutz (1899-

1959) who initially applied phenomenological ideas – which questions how individuals make sense of

the world that they are part of and how the researcher should omit his or her preconceptions of said

world – to social studies (Bryman & Bell, 2011; Watson & Korczynksi, 2011). Important to point out

is that in the former’s definition the job of finding the explanations of why social action takes a

determined course is left to its interpretative understanding. It rules out that there is a fixed, separate,

and external reality in which social actors interact. The latter, although similar, adds an important

element to interpretivism, it focuses on how individuals make sense of their social reality. How the

meanings they have interpreted from their relationship to one-another and to the structures that surround

them all add up to what they understand as “reality”. A reality which – although different to each

individual – may be considered an outcome of that group’s social constructs.

This study will take the interpretivist approach to social science that Weber (1947) and Schutz (1962)

propose in their definitions. The methods as to which this study aims to gather knowledge is through

understanding the perspective or point of view of the members of the Aquatic Center that are the focus

of this case study. Through qualitative methods such as semi-structured interviews that focus on

comparing and contrasting past and present work experiences – and their perspectives as to how that

organization work(ed) – the study will aim to describe and understand, through OB theories, what is

the social reality at that particular time of the organization. These interviews will also be aided with

informal conversations and events in which the researcher took part of, in an attempt to increase the

validity of the results.

Regarding ontology and how we define reality there are two main views that are the focus in social

studies, as well as in general research, which are objectivism and constructionism. Objectivism views

reality – in this case social reality – with its social actions and meanings to have an independent

existence to that of the actors that are part of said reality (Bryman & Bell, 2011). For example, the

objectivist would claim that organizations and culture exert forces that constrain or enable social actors

18

through the use of rules, values, and laws which exist independently and externally from the actor.

Claiming that these forces and constraints have “the characteristics of an object hence having and

objective reality” (Bryman & Bell, 2011: 21).

In contrast to objectivism there is constructionism. Constructionism views social reality with its social

actions and meanings as continually being constructed – and reconstructed – by the social actors that

constitute that reality implying that these social actions and meanings are not only an outcome of social

interactions but that they are in a constant state of revision (Bryman & Bell, 2011). To follow-up on the

same example with organizations and culture, the constructionist would claim that those external and

independent forces that act upon social actors are actually social creations that are continuously

constructed and reconstructed (Becker, 1982). Bryman & Bell (2011) claim, referring to Strauss et al.’s

(1973), that social order in an organization – or within a group – is the outcome of agreed patterns and

norms, that in turn are product of ‘negotiations’ between the social actors or the organization. In this

context the word ‘negotiation’ does not forcefully entail a conscious action from the actors involved

even if this ‘negotiation’ is in a constant state of change.

The constant construction and reconstruction of the social creations and their meaning does not signify

that there is not a reality that “persists and antedates the participation of particular people” and influence

the perspective of social actors, but it is not a fixed and static reality that simply constrains said actors,

it also acts as a reference point that is constantly being (re)constructed (Becker 1982: 521; Bryman &

Bell, 2011). Although authors like Walsh (1972) and Potter (1996) may claim that there is no such

reference point, as claimed by Strauss et al. (1973) and Becker (1982), they all agree that social actors

have an active part in the creation of social constructs and social reality. So, it could be argued that, and

is corroborated by Bryman & Bell (2011) and Watson & Korczynski (2011), one of the most common

ontological view on social sciences is that of constructionism.

Therefore, guiding the epistemological posture of this study, the ontological view that is central to this

research study is that of constructionism. Based on the view that reality is made up of the interpretations

of each of the members of the organization in focus will this study attempt to answer its research

questions. In a way the study is looking to get as close as it is possible to the ‘reference point’, as

claimed by Becker (1982) and Bryman & Bell (2011), through the use of OB theories as framework

that explains the social phenomena that are part of the organization. The main reasons behind this

posture has to do with the social nature of the research questions, the employment of OB theories, and

the focus on a particular FB all of which can be addressed coherently through a constructionist

ontological view.

4.3 Methodology

As it was explained in the introduction, this study will employ qualitative methods as its main research

strategy. The decision of using qualitative methods to answer the research questions has to do with the

previously explained epistemological and ontological postures of this thesis. The following methods

consider that every member of the organization – and society – has its own interpretations of the social

phenomena that are part of their surrounding – in this case the organization – which are in a constant

state of (re)construction and that in order to access or gain that knowledge it is indispensable to use an

interpretivist approach which will aid in describing the social reality of the organization in focus in this

particular time.

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4.3.1 Semi-Structured Interviews and Ethnographic Approach

According to Bryman & Bell (2011) qualitative interviews, as opposed to quantitative interviews, are

better suited to answer questions that relate to interviewee’s values, their beliefs, their past/present

behaviors, their roles, their relationship and their emotions. This makes qualitative interviews

particularly adequate to address the research questions of this thesis. There are different types of

qualitative interviews, such as semi-structured, unstructured, life history interviews, photo interviews,

etc., but the two most common ones are semi-structured interviews and unstructured interviews

(Bryman & Bell, 2011).

Unstructured interviews, as its name entails, have no particular structure. The researcher starts with a

set of topics which he uses as a memory aid to narrow down the subjects that the interviewee will talk

about (Bryman and Bell, 2011). This type of qualitative interview seems to behave somewhat as a

conversation with the exception that it usually starts with a question that the interviewee can answer

openly and freely. The researcher’s main job is to simply follow-up points of interest that may arise

and, more importantly, must be able to recognize the difference between important statements –

statements that describe points of view, emotions, beliefs, etc. – from statements that describe processes

– processes like daily procedures or operations and events (Whyte, 1953). It could be argued that,

although not unique for unstructured interviews, time and access to interviewees for unstructured

interviews may pose a greater difficulty due to the lack of accurate estimations of time and topics that

will be covered. Thus, special focus on having the proper access and permissions to carry out this type

of interview should be acquired (Bryman & Bell, 2011).

Semi-structured interviews, contrary to unstructured interviews, do rely on an interview guide but

without losing the flexibility of its unstructured counterpart (Bryman & Bell, 2011). This interview

guide, which focuses on the specific topics that the researcher wants to address, is not a fixed script as

it would be in a structured interview case. The interviewer may – or not – follow it strictly with the

intention of letting the interviewee answer openly but more focused than in an unstructured interview

(Bryman & Bell, 2011). In this way the interviewer, according to Bryman & Bell (2011), provides a

leeway for the interviewee to answer freely and address the topics that are of interest to the researcher.

De Massis & Kotlar (2014) argue that interviews, particularly in an FB context, are especially suited to

gain deeper insights to the values and beliefs of the interviewee because they have the potential of

producing unexpected, thoughtful – and focused – responses.

However, given the flexible nature of the interview, the researcher should emphasize in the ways in

which the interviewee frames his or her answers and the topics that are discussed with the interviewer.

According to different authors (e.g. De Massis & Kotlar, 2014; Bryman & Bell, 2011; Watson &

Korczynski, 2011; Musson, 1998) this is where the interviewer must make use of the flexibility– in a

thoughtful and strategic manner – that this method enables. The researcher must guide the interview

“process to a large extent by asking individuals to [talk] about . . . their understanding of the purpose of

the organization . . . about their lives in previous organizations and how they had experienced these;

what they had found rewarding, constraining or difficult to make sense of, and how this differed in their

current organization. Again, the open-ended structure of the narratives allowed people to introduce

subjects of major importance to them” (Musson 1998: 16).

A semi-structured approach to the interviews tends to be favored when the researcher has a “fairly clear

focus” since the start of the investigation and also when the researcher has a “clear idea” of which

method of analysis will be used for the data (Bryman & Bell, 2011: 472). This is the case for this thesis

and given the inductive approach of this piece of research the investigation starts with a focus on using

20

OB theories as a framework to analyze the data after interpreting the data with a thematic analysis which

will be further explained in the next sub-section.

The interviews where divided in three different sections. The first section involved talking about their

past working experiences. The main objectives were to give the researcher an idea of how long they

have been working, how were they involve (or not) in an aquatic environment and, finally, gain their

perspective of what they liked or disliked from their previous jobs. These answers would, consequently,

be compared against the answers of the second section which involved questions regarding their present

work. By contrasting the answers, the researcher could focus on different issues during the interview

which may prove to be important for the analysis. Finally, the third section involved a description of

their lives within their community from a local and personal perspective. This last section of the

interview had the objective of comparing whether their personal lives (family and close relationships)

and their community were similar between employees and the TMT. The questions were mainly of a

behavioral nature which are open-ended with the intention of obtaining a more thorough answer from

the interviewee (Glyré et al., 2014). This type of questions are also considered to be an adequate method

to describe actual behavior of the interviewee (Huffcutt et al., 2011) as opposed to hypothetical

questions which might promote ideal answers from the interviewees (Glyré et al., 2014). The same

three-section approach was taken with all the interviews as to be able to get comparable answers for the

analysis (Bryman & Bell, 2011). The interview guide for the TMT and the employees may be found in

Appendix A and Appendix B.

However, quantitative and qualitative interviews, are not bullet-proof research methods especially when

it comes to sociological research (Bryman & Bell, 2011; Watson & Korczynksi, 2011). According to

Alvesson (2003b), there are always different influences that can’t be controlled regarding an interview

context. Many authors coincide that this can be attributed to cultural roles which interviewees are

consciously or subconsciously trying to fulfill, to following certain norms which affects the way they

talk or act, and/or because the statements may be limited by the reflective capacity of the interviewees’

(e.g. Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Silverman, 1989; Dingwall, 1997; Alvesson, 2003a; etc.). For this

reason, an ethnographic approach was also employed with the intention of increasing the validity of the

data. The employment of different methods, such as semi-structured interviews, observations, and

casual conversations, sometimes referred as triangulation, is a suitable way of creating a more complete

description of a given social context (Denzin, 1994).

According to Bryman & Bell (2011), an ethnographic approach has the objective of understanding a

case (group, organization, community…) from an insider’s perspective by getting involved in the

organization’s daily activities. The word ethnography is conformed by two words, ethno- and -graphy,

which together mean the practice of writing (graphy) about people and culture (ethno). This makes it

an “obvious method for understanding work organizations as cultural entities . . . that focus on the

construction of cultural norms, expressions of organizational values, and patterns of workplace

behavior” (Bryman & Bell, 2011: 425). This approach, which was mostly employed by anthropologists,

is now commonly used in business research, given its unique focus on social relations and structured

goal-oriented work (Rosen, 1991). The main important factors to consider, according to Bryman & Bell

(2011), are access to the social context in focus, time spent within the given social context, and the role

that the researcher is going to have during field work. There are also factors involving transcription of

data and analysis, however, these factors are also of common importance for other qualitative methods.

The access to the social context – context that is pertinent for the study – is important because it has to

appropriately be suited to address your research questions. In this case the social context in focus was

the daily operations of a FB aquatic center (the organization) with employees and the TMT. My position

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as researcher made it particularly easy to gain access to the social context, as Van Maanen & Kolb

(1985: 11) state, “gaining access to most organizations . . . involves some combination of strategic

planning, hard work and dumb luck”, in this case the latter was just as important as the first two factors

given that I am part of the family that owns and manages the organization. Additionally, I have also

been part of the company in previous years, mostly as a part-time worker and swimmer, but more

recently as a full-time employee. Both the amount of years that I have been involved with the

organization and the access to employees and TMT provided me with a good amount rapport with the

staff and with an ideal of time interact with employees and TMT. The former is important because my

presence in the company is seen normal and, so, helps me get involved in daily casual conversations in

which the employees and the TMT may speak in a more natural manner (Alvesson, 2003a; Bryman &

Bell, 2011). The latter, the time spent in the ‘field’, was around 40 days of field work, these days were

mixed between daily operations and the semi-structured interviews. Although ethnographies in case

studies tend to last longer than 40 days (Bryman & Bell, 2011; Watson & Korczynski, 2011), for

example, from 2 months up to 5 years (e.g. Roy, 1958; Burawoy, 1979; Benyon, 1975, etc.), there are

instances – such as Master and Bachelor dissertations – in which a smaller amount of time is adequate

(Wolcott, 1995). This particular form of ethnography focuses on a particular aspect of an organizational

culture, in this case organizational values and their interaction within the organization and its members,

for a shorter time period to achieve a better understanding of that particular aspect of the organizational

culture (Bryman & Bell, 2011).

According to Gold’s (1958) classification of participant observer roles, which are complete participant,

participant-as-observer, observer-as-participant, and complete observer, there are 4 roles that the

ethnographer or researcher should follow during his fieldwork. The main difference between the roles

is the level of involvement or participation that the researcher chooses to have in the case (Bryman &

Bell, 2011). Starting from complete participant with the complete involvement decreasing to complete

observer in which the researcher observes its subject of study unobtrusively. During the empirical

investigation of this case my position varied from Participant-as-Observer to Observer-as-Participant

depending on the situation I was involved in a particular moment. Whether those moments were

interviews, observations, or casual conversations the members of the organization, employees and

TMT, were fully aware of my position as a researcher. This mix of roles – between Participant-as-

Observer and Observer-as-Participant – created a particular position in which I could take advantage

of the familiarity of the settings, the access it provided me with, and the time to interact in a more

meaningful manner with the members of the organization through “less formal, more spontaneous talks

between researcher [me] and informants [employees and TMT]” that are a good complement for the

gathering and analysis of the data (Alvesson, 2003a: 172). Although my position as researcher and

family member may be problematic it also may be employed as a resource if the aim of carrying out a

cultural analysis and not an introspection is maintained (Spradley & McCurdy, 1972; Bryman & Bell,

2011). As Alvesson (2003a) compares, “a conventional ethnographer uses any kind of active

participation for an instrumental purpose . . . whereas the idea of a self-ethnography - ethnography in

which the researcher is highly familiar with its setting (Bryman & Bell, 2011) – is to utilize the position

one is in also for other, secondary purposes, i.e. doing research on the setting of which one is a part” (p.

175).

These two types qualitative methods have the principal objective of aiding in the creation, description,

and explanation of the social reality that is present in the aquatic center. The methods stay true on the

constructivist view upon social reality which looks for common subjects or themes between the

members of the organization all the while understanding that each one of the members – including the

researcher, interviewer, and/or ethnographer – has their own perspectives, interpretations, and

understandings of the world that surrounds them.

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4.3.2 Purposive Sampling

According to Bryman & Bell (2011), one of the most common types of sampling methods in qualitative

research is that of purposive sampling and this study is not an exception. In these types of studies

purposive sampling can be used to either select the cases involved and/or select the people who will be

involved in the study. As explained in this section the case study focuses on a family-owned and

-managed aquatic center, its organizational values, and how these interact within the employees and the

TMT (unit of analysis) through an OB theoretical framework.

Being that said, although purposive sampling – as is in case studies – does not allow the researcher to

generalize to a population, the employment of purposive sampling does, however, contributes to the

objective of selecting a strategic sample that is fully relevant for the research questions of this study

(Bryman & Bell, 2011). Relying on statistical criteria, such as probability or random sampling, to select

a sample in a qualitative study that is primarily concerned with understanding a social phenomenon is

not appropriate, and it should, instead, rely on theoretical criteria (Glaser & Strauss, 1967).

4.3.3 Thematic Analysis

One of the main issues that arise within qualitive research is that it tends to produce large amount data

in a very diverse form (i.e. interview transcripts, field notes, and documents generate data that is

immediately comparable) (Bryman & Bell, 2011). Given these types of problems that are inherent to

qualitative research there are different analytic methods – such as Grounded Theory, Thematic

Analysis, Discourse Analysis, etc. – that have been developed address that data according to the study’s

epistemological and ontological position (Bryman & Bell, 2011). This thesis will employ Thematic

Analysis, which according to different sources is one of the most common ways to approach qualitative

data (e.g. Bryman & Bell, 2011; Terry et al., 2017; Rosala, 2019), to process and interpret the data

produced from the interviews and the observations.

According to Rosala (2019) thematic analysis (TA) can be – generally – described as a method of

separating and organizing qualitative data with – fitting and descriptive – codes to ease the discovery

of possible themes that may be used to describe the data. Due to the flexibility and the diverse ways in

which this method can be used it is important to define from which ontological – and consequently

epistemological – view will the data be analyzed (Terry et al., 2017). There are two main schools of

thought regarding thematic analysis: (1) TA analyzes the data from a positivist point of view which

focuses on building reliable coding (often associated with pre-studied categories and a deductive

approach); (2) TA analyzes the data from a theory independent and flexible stand point to organically

develop coding and themes (often associated with an inductive approach to data analysis) (Terry et al.,

2017). This thesis will follow the latter’s approach, the data produced from the interviews and

observations will be analyzed from an inductive approach with the objective of developing codes and

themes “from scratch” and without a significant amount of preconceptual influence.

Terry et al. (2017) propose that the research should follow 6 different steps to carry out a Thematic

Analysis. These steps are: (1) data familiarization, (2) code generation, (3) theme construction, (4)

potential theme revision, (5) theme definition and naming, (6) report production. As the name and the

steps imply this method focuses on codes and themes to analyze and interpret data. Codes are used to

describe what a certain text (interview transcription, field note, etc.) is about and aids in “categorizing”

it to ease comparability between different texts; codes can be either descriptive or interpretive based on

whether it describes what the data is about or includes an interpretation from the researcher (Rosala,

2019). A theme emerges from the codes, it can be describe as major common phenomena that captures

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different codes within the data; the researcher main issue is to balance the possible – or not –

overlapping codes to find these themes and define them (Rosala, 2019; Terry et al., 2017).

Familiarizing with the data, according to Terry et al. (2017), is about engaging and deeply knowing the

data. The researcher should fully immerse in the entirety of the data set in order to start “. . . noticing

patterns or quirks, starting to ask questions, and so on, rather than just absorbing the information therein,

as when reading a good crime novel” (Terry et al., 2017: ch2, p.3). The researcher may employ different

tactics, such as side notes, interpretation, or thoughts, to aid him in understanding the data set, to be

able to refer back to them, and to begin with thinking in terms of codes. Code generating is an iterative

process focused on developing relevant – pertaining or relating to the research questions – labels to the

data set that helps in reducing and organizing the data into different patterns (Terry et al., 2017).

Theme construction involves the examination of the developed codes and combine or collapse them

into a more significant pattern (Terry et al., 2017). The main objective of this step is to identify and

form patterns that englobe the whole data set, the researcher needs to identify a central organizing

concept – a ‘clear core idea or concept that underpins a theme’ (Braun et al., 2015, p.102) – that is

shared between different codes (Terry et al., 2017). Reviewing the themes that are generated helps

ensure that they are compatible with relation to the codes that were generated, that they are distinctive,

and that they are relevant to the research questions (Terry et al., 2017). As Braun & Clarke (2006) argue,

the researcher should be able to evaluate if the themes capture the essence of the data set in a meaningful

and useful way, hence, starting the process of defining and naming the theme. Defining a theme,

according to Terry et al. (2017, p.20), should move away the researcher “from a summative position –

thinking of themes as list of codes and collated data – to an interpretive orientation”. Meaning that the

definition of the theme should include the details and the boundaries that each central concept means to

explain or describe. The definition should be clear and cohesive enough to stand by itself as a pillar of

the overall analysis (Terry et al., 2017).

Finally, producing a TA report is the last step of the process. Although there is already a fair amount of

written material by the time the researcher gets to this point the report’s main objective is to create a

“story” that “moves [the researcher] from a ‘purely’ analytic point in the research process . . . back to

the bigger picture of the overall project” (Terry et al., 2017, p.22). An analytical approach is going to

be employed in the report with some illustrative support in the form of interview excerpts. This

combination of two approaches has the benefit of both being able to use clear examples from each

interview to support the arguments that are going to be brought forth during the analysis of the results

(Terry et al., 2017).

4.3.4 Applying the Methodology

As explained in the previous sections the empirical data was gathered through semi-structured interviews,

through observations, and casual conversations that took place during normal working conditions of the

Aquatic Center. The purpose of using this approach was based on the epistemological and ontological

standpoints of interpretivism and constructivism, also previously explained, because the main research

question guiding this research is of a social nature which is more commonly addressed from said positions

(Bryman & Bell, 2011).

The employees that were selected were 7 Swimming Coaches, 6 Site Coordinators, and the TMT composed

of 3 members of the owning family. These employees were selected based on the number of connections

between the principal members of the organization and the customers. There was a considerable amount of

data which was properly processed and then analysed. A total of more than 20 hours’ worth of interview

24

material and different field notes from observations and conversations that took place during a 40-day

period on site. It would be reasonable to imply that the major bulk of the data analysed in this research came

from the interviews.

Each of the interviews were analysed through Thematic Analysis following Terry et al.’s (2017) 6-Step

approach which is (1) Data Familiarization, (2) Code Generation, (3) Theme Construction, (4) Potential

Theme Revision, (5) Theme Definition and Naming, and (6) Report Production. The first two steps of this

process involve the most time-consuming work given the need to listen, transcribe, and read more than 20

hours of interviews so that it may be more efficiently broken down to more digestible data sizes through

coding. Approximately it took around 4 to 5 hours of transcribing and a further 2 to 3 hours to organize and

code. The code generation, as stated previously, was made from an inductive position. There were no

previously made categories or specific theoretical influences in place before the coding started.

Approximately each interview generated between 44 and 83 individual codes. Each individual code was be

categorized together with other codes as to simplify the data. However, given that the research questions

imply the need of separating the values that are characteristic of the organization and those that characterize

the employees and the top management team (TMT) they were further divided into personal and

organizational codes. After this second division the codes were classified together into groups that shared

similar meaning or that are related to each other. This created the advantage of having a much more

manageable amount of codes to start with the theme construction. These sets of codes were measured with

and against each of the case units that are part of this study and sorted from most-to-least common and a

Perception Agreement Percentage was calculated.

Finally, to focus on the most important or most shared sets of codes, only 80% of the most common sets of

codes were selected for theme construction. This last division ended up including between 10 to 15 sets of

personal-oriented codes and between 8 to 16 sets of organization-oriented codes. The latter refers to the

researcher’s interpretation of each of the employee’s perceptions of the values – still codes at the moment

– that are characteristic of the organization.

Before addressing the construction of the themes, it is important to remember the definition of

organizational values that this research is based on. Values, as defined by Rokeach (1973), are beliefs and

taken-for-granted assumptions that one’s goal or the way in which he or she reaches that goal is personally

or sociably preferable than another. Whenever, before or after, this term is used it will be referring back to

this definition but within the context of the organization.

Proceeding after the final division of the sets of code, they were renamed to address and describe the

organizational value they are representing. This was done for each unit of analysis and for the organization

as a whole. Four groups were created from the two units of analysis of the case study: (1) TMT’s perception

of the organizational values, (2) TMT’s perception of their personal values, (3) Employee’s perceptions of

organizational values, and (4) Employee’s perception of their personal values.

The previously mentioned four groups were analysed – as it will be exemplified in the following paragraphs

– in the same manner. Although aiming to directly measure the personal values of either of these groups

was not part of the original aim but became necessary given that the organizational values and the personal

values are not always the same. Thus, a distinction had to be made and this was realized by interpreting

what the interviewee said based on, “What does this tell me about the interviewee? What does this tell me

about the organization?”. The following is an example of how two interview excerpts were analysed from

the transcription and initial coding to the defining of themes (values).

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“Well, perhaps… perhaps there could be a meeting at the end of the month where Director X would say, ‘Hey

Coordinator X, come let’s check the numbers, let’s see how we can attack from this side or the other…’. I’ve

always told Director X that I would like to make a career here. But, honestly, I see it very

complicated” - Employee

From this excerpt I started by writing a small interpretative sentence based on said questions. First, I

answered the question from the organization’s perspective, that is thinking about how this excerpt describes

the company, I wrote, “There seems to be a lack of formal communication in the company. There seems to

be motivation to grow and improve oneself, but he/she thinks its complicated.”. After writing these small

sentences I identified what was the main message of each of them. In this case it seems to be a clear need

of communication, a clear motivation to grow, and impediments to grow, these last two point were

afterwards classified together under need of a development plan.

Second, I answered the question from the employee’s perspective, how does this describe the employee,

I wrote, “In search for feedback and guidance. Probably clarity. Wants to improve himself. Seems

committed with the company.”. From these short sentences the codes growth oriented and commitment

were formulated. This process took place within the analysis of every excerpt of the interview. In total

there were an average of 43 excerpts per interview and an average of 1 hour and 15 minutes per

interview.

Once the transcribing, the coding, the theme development and the organizational values were

determined they were divided into three main categories: (1) Full Organizational Values, (2) TMT’s

Personal and Organizational Values, and (3) Employee’s Personal and Organizational Values. These

categories were based on each group’s perception of what are the values of the Aquatic Center (AC)

and were later related to three broader themes which will be explained further in the Analysis Section.

During this second analysis some observations were also considered, and they will be identified as such

in their given moment, mostly to complement the claims made in the analysis. Nevertheless, it is

important to explain that they will be presented in the form of paraphrased interactions of casual

conversations and of general observations that took place on site.

4.3.5 Disposition

The next chapters will focus on presenting the findings of the research. In chapter 5 I will present the

organizational values that characterize the TMT, the employees, and the Aquatic Center as a whole.

While in chapter 6 these values will be used together with Neo-Institutional Theory to analyze the

interaction of the organizational values within the different meaning systems that characterize Aquatic

Center. Chapter 7 will discuss the research questions relating to the results analysis presented in chapter

6, along with their implications, and limitations. Finally, chapter 8 will present the conclusion of this

thesis along with contributions and possible future research.

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5. Identifying the Organizational Values

5.1 The Values of the Top Management Team

As a group, the members of the TMT, agreed almost 100% on their top organizational values. The

values, according to their perception, that characterize the organization are, ranked from most to least

mentioned, (1) need of communication, (2) need of formal procedures, (3) discipline, (4) social impact,

(5) commitment, (6) flexibility, (7) passion, (8) customer service, and (9) need of a development plan.

The only value that was not mentioned by the three members of the TMT is customer service which

was mentioned only by one out of the three members. The reason for this discrepancy, as it will be

shown in the next section, has to do with the previous company in which said member used to work.

The director has always worked in a service-oriented company.

From the four organizational values perceived by the TMT and not by the employees, the most

important to discuss are discipline, social impact and passion. Discipline ranked 3rd on the TMT’s list

it was mentioned by all three members 20 times during their interviews and as it will be further analyzed

it’s the value that ranks higher within the TMT’s personal values – the controlling family’s personal

values. Social impact was ranked 4th in the organizational value list and was mentioned 18 times in all

the interviews of the TMT. It can also be linked to the TMT’s personal values, ranking 5th in the personal

value list, and can be related to the lessons and stories with which the members of the controlling family

grew up. Passion was ranked 7th in the organizational value list and was mentioned 12 times. However,

it was not part of the TMT’s personal value list. Although it is not just an exclusive characteristic of the

three members of the TMT, when compared to the rest of the siblings of the controlling family, it was

not mentioned as a personal value, but, it may be linked to the sport logic, which will be addressed in

the analysis, that is influencing the organization.

As can be inferred from the previous paragraph, the TMT’s organizational values and their personal

values differ from one another. Their personal values, as a group, are (1) discipline, (2) harmony, (3)

commitment, (4) responsibility, (5) social impact, (6) flexibility, (7) work-life balance, and (8)

proactivity. These personal values are interpreted as the values that were learned, instilled, or manifested

from the interaction of the members of the TMT and their family (grandparents, parents, and siblings).

Unlike with the organizational values, the members of the TMT all mention the personal values at least

once during the interviews. This may indicate the strong bond they have shared and fostered throughout

their lives and the common education with which they grew up. Although employees also share a large

share of their personal values, as it will be described in the next subsection, with the organizational

values of the Aquatic Center, the TMT’s personal values that are shared with the Aquatic Center can be

a product of the controlling family’s influence over the family business. This claim sustained by the

fact that with only 3 members and that some of these values are not shared by the employees, they are

still reflected in the organization.

5.2 The Values of the Employees

The employees of the Aquatic Center, as mentioned before, share 7 out of the 8 organizational values

that they perceive as being characteristic of the Aquatic Center. Unlike the TMT, which agree almost

100% with each other, the employees have a perception agreement that ranges between 90% and 100%.

Ranked from most mentioned to least, the organizational values that they, as a group, perceive as

characterizing the company are (1) need of communication, (2) harmony, (3) flexibility, (4) need of a

development plan, (5) need of formal procedures, (6) commitment, (7) expertise (know-how), and (8)

image. The most mentioned value was need of communication with 132 mentions in all 13 interviews,

follow by harmony with 109 mentions, flexibility with 82 mentions, and all the way to the least

mentioned value which was image with 29 mentions. Although the number of mentions seem to be way

higher compared to the TMT’s mentions of their perceived set of values, the average number of

27

mentions per employee is similar between both groups. Thus, the higher number of mentions can be

attributed to the higher number of employees.

Employees perceive three organizational values that are not perceived by the TMT and these are

harmony, expertise (know-how), and image. From these three values the ones I believe are important to

emphasize are expertise and image. Expertise, as previously defined, has to do with the specific

knowledge that is involved in swimming as a sport. Although it is not mentioned by the TMT, it is

something 10 out of the 13 employee interviewees possess. Only three employees who were interviewed

do not have a background in swimming. The rest either were swimmers themselves, have been

instructors, and/or they come from long family swimming legacy. In this case, expertise, just as passion

in the previous section, can be linked to the sport logic that influences the company. Image, however,

may be related to one of the TMT’s values. During some of the conversations I had with the employees,

their principal concern with the image that is portrayed by the company stems from the pressure or

demand – linked to discipline – that the TMT has always placed on them regarding customer service.

That may explain the reason why this value was not mentioned by the TMT explicitly but is still may

be an indirect consequence of some of the TMT’s values.

The employee’s personal values, on the other hand, differ more from those of the TMT compared to their

perceived organizational values. The employees’ personal values are (1) harmony, (2) growth oriented, (3)

service, (4) communication, (5) responsibility, (6) commitment, (7) flexibility, (8) authority, (9) work-life

balance, and (10) discipline. Out of the ten values, employees’ only share six of them with the TMT.

Although there are four personal values that employees do not share with the TMT (growth-oriented,

service, communication, and authority). I would like to focus on communication and authority because they

have a direct implication to some of the conflicts that arise in the interaction between the different influential

forces that affect the organization. Communication as defined by the organizational values has to do with

clarity and feedback and, although not defined as an organizational value, authority means that the

employees value clear authority figures. They do not fare well in situations where there is an ambiguous

authority figure because the uncertainty may disrupt the harmony in which they feel comfortable to work.

Communication, in this case, serves to create clear rules for situation in which this kind of uncertainty may

occur. In the analysis section there will be an excerpt that depicts one of these situations.

5.3 The Organizational Values of the Aquatic Center

The results of the thematic analysis served to identify the top 8 organizational values that characterize

the company. These organizational values are the result of the most common perceptions of the TMT

and of the Employees, however, as it will be described in the next section, these values may have

different, although related, meaning depending on the interviewee and his or her background. Therefore,

I intend to start by presenting these 8 organizational values – with their general meaning – and then by

presenting how each group, TMT and Employees, defined said values.

The main organizational values that resulted from the analysis are:

1. Need of Communication: referring to the lack of channels between different levels of the

organization which create vacuums with ambiguous authority figures and unclear goals,

instructions, and/or policies.

2. Flexibility: referring to the ability of the company to adapt to different circumstances, to quickly

solve pressing concerns, and – more importantly – the ability to employ one’s own criteria to

different situations.

3. Harmony: referring to the work environment that surrounds the social context within which the

employees and the TMT operate on a daily basis. There is a strong emphasis on collaboration

and respect between the members of the organization.

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4. Need of Development Plan: refers to the lack of opportunities to grow within the company

given to its characteristics. Secondarily, it also refers to a lack of feedback between the different

levels of the organization.

5. Need of Formal Procedures: refers to the lack of organizational structures and procedures that

aims to improve efficiency and control of daily operations and future growth plans.

Secondarily, it also refers to a lack of consistency on certain decisions, rulings, or sanctions

that have been made in the past.

6. Commitment: refers to the daily effort, persistency, and tenacity that are part of the working

environment. It also points to the commitment to the organization’s vision.

7. Discipline: refers to the constant focus on achieving one’s or the organization’s goal on a daily

basis and during a probably uncertain time period.

8. Expertise (Know-How): refers to the specific technical knowledge that is involved in teaching

how to swim, in training swimming teams and understanding clients. In the case of Mexico it

is not necessarily taught in a formal course (e.g. in an institution, certification program, etc.), it

is more commonly learned through experience and the informal exchanged of knowledge.

These were the organization’s top most common values that resulted from the analysis of the data. As I said

before they were sorted from most to least common and were linked to a calculated Perception Agreement

Percentage. The latter refers to the researcher’s perception ratio of the number of organization members

that shared said set of codes. It is a way of indicating what is the percentage of members that share that

particular value. As a whole, the agreement percentage of the organizational values varied from 8% to

100%, but, only from 85% to 100% for the main organizational values (values listed above). The

composition of the main organizational values included 6 out of the top 9 organizational values of the TMT

and 6 out of the top 8 organizational values of the employees, having a value compatibility ratio of 66%

and 75% respectively with the organization. While the number of values that were shared between the TMT

and the employees was 6 out of 9 for the TMT and 7 out of 8 for the employees. This overlapping will be

addressed in the next section when the larger themes are described. See Figure 2 and Figure 3 for a

visualization of this comparison.

Figure 2 – Comparison of the TMT’s perception of the organizational value as a group and the

organizational values of the Aquatic Center.

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Figure 3 - Comparison of the Employee's perception of the organizational values and the actual

Organizational Values of the Aquatic Center.

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6. Value Interaction within the Organization

After the initial thematic analysis, which was used to identify the organizational values of the Aquatic

Center, broader themes were identified which were analyzed by employing neo institutional theory

(NIT) as a framework to answer the research questions driving this case study. Addressing the

organizational values from these broader themes allowed me to notice that there were three meaning

systems that were influencing and interacting with the organization:

1. Swimming the Sport (Mexican Competitive Swimming)

2. The Health Club, Wellness Center Business

3. The Owning Family

These meaning systems or institutions, according to Scott & Meyer (1994), are cultural rules that bestow

meaning and value to specific entities and activities that may, or may not, be integrated into one another.

Given that institutions underwent – and continue to undergo – processes of institutionalization through

which a given set of units and patterns become normatively or cognitively accepted or taken-for-granted

(Miner, 2011), it is important to define which combination of representational, constitutive, normative

rules, and which enforcement mechanisms are part of the process that is taking place. Also important

to define are the social actors that, consciously or subconsciously, aid in the exertion of these forces

(Miner, 2011). These meaning systems and the previously mentioned characteristics will be explained

in the following paragraphs. See Table 2 for a summary of the analysis.

The analysis of this subsystems has the main purpose of aiding in the understanding the social reality

that is being manifested – interpreted – in the Aquatic Center. Each one of these systems has been

simplified because the main focus of this study is the organizational values of the AC and how these

interact with the members of the organization, however, the descriptions of these systems are supported

by the empirical data. Nevertheless, these systems could be studied individually and extensively in their

own separate works of research.

6.1 Swimming the Sport

The domain, or field, that is Swimming the Sport (STS) has a strong influence on the employees of the

Aquatic Center, especially on the coaches and clients who like to compete. Through a NIT lens, this

field has its own taken-for-granted ‘equation’ to achieve success. Success may be defined as being the

champion or improving one’s best performance. There is a taken-for-granted embedded belief that

swimming as a sport consists of a process of self-development and that it involves training, which can

be defined as daily work with constant feedback, and talent (FMN, 2020). The latter involves the

physical and mental capabilities that are inherent to any swimmer. Amateur or elite, every swimmer,

has a particular set of characteristics which may or may not enhance a particular part of their swimming.

The involvement of two factors to achieve success means that neither talent nor training by themselves

are enough to guarantee it. Unlike different countries where competitive swimming can indeed be a

self-sustaining professional sport (e.g. the USA, Australia, and other developed countries), in Mexico,

the goal of continuous development is what characterizes this sport’s domain.

During the analysis of the interviews one of the main concerns of the employees was the need to have

a proper development plan that emphasizes on increasing their knowledge as to improve their coaching

skills:

“I have like 8 year without going to a clinic [swimming conference]. I feel left out, I feel a bit down […]

I feel that we should at least try to get to go to one clinic per year […] I feel that part has been missing,

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even Government Institutions send one or two coaches […] Its important, it serves the purpose of retaking

and refreshing previously held knowledge. You get to understand certain aspects in a different

manner.” - Employee

One could argue, in general terms, that the main or most important social actors that are involved in

STS are the swimmers and the coaching staff. The latter would be made up of an assistant coach(es)

and a head coach. The coaching staff’s objective focus should be to improve the performance of their

swimmers. They may focus on following a continuous and carefully thought out plan, on the current

state of the installations in which they train their team, and the logistics that are involved when a

swimming competition is upcoming:

“When there are events [competitions] out of town […] I know it is not easy but the group [adult

swimmers] constantly ask me, ‘Hey Coach you are going to come with us right?’ […] to which I normally

answer, “You know the rule if 10 or more of you are going then I should be able to come with you, if

there is not a previous commitment with the company”. As I stall asking for permission, thinking the

right moment to ask, my group is already insisting, “You are going, here is what you would need for the

stay and your flight. Do not worry if the company does not provide you with the expenses, if they do

great, and if they don’t we will help you out”. - Employee

“[Concerning the team’s program]Since we have been growing I think we have been losing that part […]

I struggle because Coach X does not work the same as he does [Head Coach], he works too differently

[…] We reached a point that I had to modify my training to Coach X’s way because otherwise neither

Coach X nor myself would have properly worked.” - Employee

Also important is the role of the swimmer because the feedback that is required to excel in this sport is

not unidirectional. The coach learns just as much from the swimmer’s input and, from a motivational

perspective, it is generally the case that the coach feels proud of their swimmer’s achievements. It

creates the opportunity for coaches – to some extent it is also comparable to what teachers may feel –

of having an important impact on the life of their swimmer.

“To be able to see that a client who could not swim because she had some sort of paralysis […] I taught

her how to swim here [Aquatic Center], I gave her some therapy, and then some swimming lessons. The

girl with this impediment and now she is walking with an aid by herself. It gave me a lot of satisfaction;

she arrived in a wheelchair and is now walking all the way from the parking lot to the pool.” - Employee

“[Discussing the first 10k swim of the 10 & Under Kids] Sometimes you have to swim with them and

help them. You swim against the current with all the little kids to motivate them and push them to fight

the current so that they may cross the finish line” - Employee

It is for that reason that some employees from the Aquatic Center are concerned with the amount

attention, the amount of dedicated space, and the quality of the installations – connecting also the STS

meaning system and the Health Club Business system that will be explained in the following subsection.

These concerns create certain expectations of how an Aquatic Center must be managed and what

conditions should be complied by said organization. For example, some points or expectations that kept

being mentioned during the interviews were the need for formal procedures or guidelines that would

aid in clearly defining which is the training schedule, which are the lanes that will be dedicated to the

swimming team, and the water quality of the pool.

“Yes, I think communicating to the adult that between 4pm and 6pm the focus is on the swimming team.

[…] It is something that has to be solved because it is one of the things that makes me explode a bit.

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Because there are some adults that arrive at 3:50pm, and then I don’t know if I’ll give him or not the

service, you end up not focusing on the adult nor on the swimming team” - Employee

“I compare the change between the current management and the previous one and it is completely

different. The water temperature is the correct one, the water color [clarity] is really good, the security…

the previous owners [a different company] were too lose with their procedures.” - Employee

The enforcement mechanisms that seem to be in effect in STS are mostly normative and coercive in

nature. There are mimetic mechanisms in place such as embedded beliefs, for example, that no amount

of talent will ever truly succeed without training or to the contrary that training as hard as possible is

always positive, or the different classifications for swimmers (sprinters, freestylers, long-distance

swimmers, etc.), but they would apply to any Swimming Institution and not only in Mexico. The

normative mechanisms that are most common tend to be those carried by preparation (education in

swimming), coaches have to comply with the standards that are in place, for example, complying with

certain amount of distance or training time with 10-&-Under kids. The coercive mechanisms are usually

enforced by the Head Coach and they come in the form of a predesigned training that must be followed

(some adaptations are allowed but the core principles must be followed) and, as mentioned in a previous

quote, complying with certain requirements to be granted special permissions.

“[…] it is really hard sometimes to get that ‘pat on the back’, so I got somewhat upset at that moment,

and it was then when the Head Coach enlisted my errors, ‘You [coach] push the children too hard, you’re

to passionate, that is too much distance…’. I told the Head Coach that Coach X had already told me all

of that and that I’ve been working hard on adapting my training style.” – Employee

In general terms the competitive swimming field could be defined as a meaning system with a taken for

granted belief that training (daily work and feedback) and talent are necessary for continuously

improving one’s own performance. The main social actors involved would be the swimmers and the

coaching staff (there are also judges, parents, and government appointees that enable the sport). The

latter is mainly involved in the feedback and the guidance that the swimmer needs. While the former

mainly focuses on his or her performance while also providing feedback and a sense of meaning to the

coach. These actors also have expectations as to what they want to receive from each other, what they

need in order for them to do their job, and what commitments can be expected from either party.

6.2 Health Club Business / Wellness Center

The Health Club Business meaning system refers to the idea that the Aquatic Center also functions or

survives as a profitable business. Just as many other systems, paraphrasing a member of the TMT, the

success recipe for this business is based upon two main factors which are number of clients and

customer service. The former is based on the premise that if there is no profit the organization will not

survive while the latter is the combination of the quality of the installation, quality of the programs, and

quality of service and it is based on the premise that the value offer from the organization will attract

more clients.

“Here in the Aquatic Center we haven’t focused on saving on costs when it comes to improving the

facilities. We have always been trying to use the best equipment and we have prioritized the improvement

of the installations at the expense of immediate profit. In the long-run I believe it has worked because we

managed to satisfy our customers. […] a satisfied client will go out to the public and give us a good

review.” - TMT

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“I always tell my employees, ‘Do I want that everyone earns a huge amount of money? Yes, I do. That

we could all study and be able to create our own patrimony? Yes, I do.”, it is a valid a noble goal, but we

all have to construct it and work for it. It is not free.” - TMT

The main social actors that are involved in this meaning system, from a broad perspective, would be

operators, managers and directors (there are also maintenance technicians, cleaning staff, suppliers,

etc.). Basically, social actors that have been created by already institutionalized business practices. The

main objectives of operators would be to perform the work needed to deliver the service offered by their

organization which in turn was hired by the client, the managers will focus on organizing the operators

as to comply with the strategic direction of the organization. While the directors will decide which is

the most suitable way of organizing the company to guide the organization towards the desired goal.

“I see the Aquatic Center as being one step behind of Company X with respect to maturity. […] There

are certain implicit values in the organization but they are not systemized yet.” - TMT

“Well, that we would achieve our vision of being the best swimming option… that is my dream… I feel

we are missing a lot of coverage in the state and I expect that the next generation takes this to all of

Mexico” - TMT

“Where do I see the Aquatic Center in 15 years? All around the republic. I don’t know if it can be

replicated outside Mexico but I think that maybe on 20 years it should be doable […] I think the future

is down [Latin America] and not up [USA].” - TMT

The expectations to which these social actors are subjected to defer between the different groups. The

directors are expected to guide the organization towards profitability and growth. They have to deal

with the expectation ‘imposed’ by their employees of being able to guide the organization in a way in

which they are rewarded and, to some extent, even provided the opportunity to grow. The managers

should deal with expectations that the way in which they manage their employees and functions will

comply with the goals of the organization and with the capabilities and limitations of their workers.

They are expected to balance the needs of their colleagues while complying with the director’s

directions. The operators are expected to use their technical knowledge and abilities in a manner in

which they will satisfy the goals of the company – this is not to say that knowledge and abilities are not

used by directors or managers – and they are expected to do so with the tools they have been provided

and perhaps even if they do not fully agree with the methods.

“Well, I do find exceptionally moving being able to provide work to people. To provide them with the

means to feed an X amount of families. That makes me wake up every day.” - TMT

“Even if the pool is full or if it is between 4pm and 6pm, if I get a new client, I’ll send him or her and

push the coaches to properly treat the client. I know the focus should be swimming team in that time but

we have to adapt sometimes to achieve our goals.” – Employee

“Its a good organization. It is keeping itself up to the technologies, it is continuously update. I would

maybe look into the organization’s method of teaching see if there could be something to change.” -

Employee

The main enforcement mechanism of this meaning system is coercive. The focus is on controlling the

business through the employment of rules, as you will read in the Aquatic Center sub-section, and

measurement of KPI’s that have the main purpose of controlling the operation. Out of the 33 KPI’s that

are measured daily 23 are focused on customers and rules, the rest refer to maintenance and, recently

employed, sanitary control. Normative mechanisms are also employed but in a less emphasized manner

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and mostly applying to a different set of employees (technicians), that were not part of the study, and

complying with maintaining strict water quality even if the law does not require it.

“The idea is that the rules and policies are intended to improve our services and to make them more

uniform.” – TMT

To summarize, this meaning system is based on the taken-for-granted premise that profitability and

growth is how the organization will survive. This is in broad general terms, there are even more

embedded cognitive beliefs like work in an organization is indeed organized, that there are different

kinds of resources in which an organization may survive, and different kinds of institutional forces that

may or may not increase the survivable chances of an organization (Scott, 2008). Social actors –

operators, managers, and directors – are roles which are embedded in the organizations and are expected

to follow a number of constitutive and normative rules that are part of a for-profit organization.

6.3 The Owning Family

The meaning system of the family – referring to the owning family – is based on both the personal

values that were interpreted from the interviews and the observations that were made and from the

relationship that I have, as researcher and family member, with the owning family. Following the same

explanation that was taken with the two previous meaning systems the main representational rule is that

one contributes to society through work. Their de facto method of approach towards creating wealth for

themselves as for others is based on two principles. The first involves hard work and dedication and the

second refers to adaptability, the ability to adapt in an ever-changing environment. It could be argued

that they find the notion of not working as inconceivable.

“We are a family with a lot strength and, even if we have been through different difficult times, I consider

us to be really united, even if we don’t say it much. I think it comes from your great grandparent that

crosses the ocean when he was 12 [Spain to Mexico], from your great grandmother that is left by her

husband in the 1950’s with a single daughter [my grandmother], a woman without studies of the high

class, gets a truck and starts selling steel… It was unheard off.” - TMT

“I started Company X with another partner in 1991 and I am the only original partner left. Before the

crisis of 95 we were 15 employees and afterwards it was only me. Even my former partner left. […] If I

would’ve known back in 91 what I would have to endure I would probably have started to look for a job.

It is really hard, you have to have the stomach for it, and you to overcome a lot of obstacles.” – TMT

“I got to meet the grandsons of my grandfather’s employees that have made me favors just because I’m

the grandkid of the boss of their grandfathers its impressive how far those values transcended through

generations. He was the first person to share his lands with his employees, he opted to make them his

partners [during land expropriation at the beginning of the 20th century]. His friends considered him

crazy, but he and his partners were the only crazies with lands left.” - TMT

The social actors, unlike in the previously explained meaning systems, tend to be more ‘timeless’

perhaps because of the temporal extent as to which one is involved in the family – one could argue that

the owning family has been surrounded by family since they were born – contrary to being officially

involved with businesses and sports from a certain point on their lives until now. The actors involved,

without creating an endless list, are the grandparents, the parents, the siblings, and the future generation.

The siblings would be the owning family of the Aquatic Center, the original owners for that matter, and

they were heavily influenced by the life stories and examples from their parents and grandparents, as

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can be seen from one of the previous quotes. They also consciously recognize the impact their education

had on each other as well as for themselves.

“I think we are an extremely working family. Some people even say we are playing with the borderline

of obsession […] Really, if you ask each of us [my uncles], one of the things that characterizes us is that

we really do love working. Everyday I wake up happy, tired and fatigued also, but always thinking in

how to overcome the next obstacle. Not overwhelmed, but happy. - TMT

“My mom is a tenacious and highly disciplined person […] We were a family where consequences were

clear. If you broke it [a rule] your grandmother was relentless. That pushes you into order. At the end of

the day she combined perfectly being nice without being naïve. We all had very clear consequences and

the clear objective of being the best.” - TMT

Although the expectations from the each of these members seem to vary more over time than that of a

manager or a swimming coach, given that there are different life stages involved in the passing of years,

it is evident from the interactions I had with the family members and from the situations that we as a

family have recently experienced that we are transitioning towards a new life stage. The parents of the

siblings are now in need of attention and care; thus, the siblings have found ways to adapt to these new

challenges and have changed their expectations towards the future generation to start focusing on the

organization with more dedication. Perhaps it is not consciously imposed by the siblings or maybe it is

something that was self-assumed by the future generation. It is, nonetheless, a normative behavior that

has been learnt by the future generation through different cultural-cognitive mechanisms.

“Defining where each of the responsibilities and roles start and end is easy. But not so easy is that you’ll

find that we [TMT] like to do whatever we like. It is your role to specify our reach as directors. There

has to be one head of the organization that has the door and window open to the board and with a clear

and direct line of communication with the employees.” – TMT

“You have a lot of work to do. We have been investing two years in you and you are asking me? You

have to select the employees who will enforce your vision really really really good […]” – TMT

The enforcement mechanisms that are employed in the Owning Family involve the three types

normative, coercive, and mimetic. As can be seen the above quotes there seems to be a rich variety of

stories and lessons that are passed on to the family. There is also a clear identity with hard work

(discipline), so, there is definitely a variety of mimetic mechanisms in play. Normative mechanisms,

aside from values, can be seen, for instance, on the familial obligation of getting together every Sunday

(grandmother, siblings, and cousins). On the expectations that the members of the family will support

one another whenever it is required. Coercive mechanisms were more common when the future

generation (cousins) and/or the siblings were younger and are not really applied in a significant manner

anymore.

“There is this whole tradition in our house that your uncles love to transmit. There are stories and stories

and stories… The grandfather this or the grandmother that… there is a lot of union in the family. Also

whenever there is a sick person on the family and nobody plays aloof. Yes, there is a lot of union, a lot

of love towards working…” – TMT

“[Regarding Company X] I wish people indeed worked. That they worked and that they became

accountable for their results. Another huge difference in Mexico compared to other countries is that,

excuses, everyone is to blame. The rain, the sun, my mom, my dad, my stomach…people do not take

accountability for their results.” – TMT

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“The calling for work. Meaning that I would like for everyone to love the work they are doing, I know

that generally everyone works for a remuneration… they should be happy… In fact, we do try to keep

them happy and content with their remuneration.” – TMT

“I think one of the most important values for the Aquatic Center should be discipline and effort [hard

work] on a daily basis. This is not an organization in which one can do home office and that already

requires daily effort and discipline.” – TMT

Therefore, without delving into too much detail because this is not the focus of the research, the Owning

Family is composed by the siblings who direct the company, they were and are influenced by the stories,

examples and lessons that they were taught by their grandparents and parents. Stories, examples, and

lessons that carry with them intrinsic beliefs that are then passed on to the future generation, which in

this case would be, me, the researcher. The main orientation, based on the stories and different

conversations, is not to generate wealth just to hoarder it but to redirect it towards the community to

contribute to their surroundings. Just as the grandparents worried about their workers, the siblings aim

to contribute to society through the self-improvement medium that the sport provides.

“To transcend in my students, I have too many years in this, to transcend also in the community… We

always dreamt of building a big center to offer opportunities to people with lack of resources… may we

can start by building in parts […] We want to increase the free Saturday courses with the foundation.

Hopefully this summer we can increase the number of kids that come.” – TMT

“Our goal in Company X is to leave a place where people enjoy coming to work. That we wouldn’t

sacrifice our values in exchange for quick growth. A place where people can develop themselves. Even

though we don’t have kids we want that to be our legacy.” – TMT

“The Aquatic Center came to be an addition to that social aspect [of Company X]. It came to complete that humane

transcendence in a more direct manner. It delivers health but it also forms athletes and it’s a medium to transfer

positive values to people, old and young, it became something that completed our vision as

businesspersons.” - TMT

6.4 The Aquatic Center

These meaning systems, Swimming the Sport, the Health Club Business, and the Owning Family,

manifest themselves in the Aquatic Center. As the analysis of the empirical data progressed there were

evident contradictions that continuously seemed to appear between different interactions and,

subsequently, between different organizational values. The reader may notice that some of the

organizational values, for example, are named as a need of formal procedures or as a need of a

development plan, although they do not represent a somewhat ‘standard’ value as would be for example,

loyalty or responsibility, however, these values do represent taken-for-granted beliefs of the members

of the organization as to how they should be able to achieve the organization’s goals. These values in

turn refer to different expectations that social actors have from one and another, expectations that are

influenced by the aforementioned meaning systems. These expectations can be better understood if we

analyze who are the social actors, their constitutive roles, the constitutive rules from which they

originated, and what enforcement mechanisms influence their behavior.

The first things I want to point out regarding the social actors is that they seem to be a compromise or

mix – for the most part – between the first two meaning systems, Swimming the Sport and HC Business,

while the Owning Family meaning system seems to be influencing mainly the views of TMT and they,

consequently, balance the influence the other two meaning systems have on the organization. The

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Owning Family, as some studies suggest (e.g. Craig et al., 2008; Rau et al., 2019), provides a unique

identity to the organization that is central to the organization and can be linked to its performance.

Being that said, the first social actor I would like to address are the Swimming Instructors. They have

learned to compromise the drive to compete and the sole focus on the swimming team with the need to

provide different kinds of feedback to clients based on their own criteria. Using an earlier quote to

exemplify this compromise we could link one of the organizational values, the need of formal

procedures, because they are in need of a clear definition as to when they can change “modes” and

focus 100% on their swimming team. Another problem they face that could be related to the first two

meaning systems’ influence is the need of communication that sometimes is exemplified in a lack of

clarity as to whom is to be prioritized if competitive swimmers or clients.

“Sometimes I feel that the priority is the swimming team and sometimes I don’t… for example, in each

site you may have some special space dedicated to the team with maybe one or two lanes for adults but

that is not the case because the teams grew. And it seems that this is the only site where we still allocate

adults during team hours. Coach X prioritizes adults and moves everything, making the rest of the pool

really crowded. I see that the priority is not the team. People notice that we are losing focus towards the

team.” – Employee

Given the influence of what seems to be a technical goal (stemming from Swimming the Sport) and a

sales goal (stemming from HC Business) swimming instructor have different incentives. On the one

hand, they have incentives which are focused on the number of swimmers they have on the competitive

swimming team and on the other on the complete number of clients that pay their membership on a

monthly basis. They are also measured by the progress their competitive swimming teams are making

and on the quality of service and attention they provide regular clients. They are asked to follow a

specific swimming plan that is homogeneously applied in all three sites (some revisions are allowed to

adapt it to the specific needs of their clients) just as they are all asked to comply with organizational

rules (concerning punctuality, dress code, etc.).

“I like how the system is managed… in concern with the swimming team and the adults. It is one single

program. Adults can go to any of the other sites and receive the same training. Maybe there are some

changes in some exercises but the core remains the same. They [adults] sometimes even comment that

like the variety in teaching styles of each coach.” – Employee

“The director came around 2pm and I was getting ready to leave [end of shift is 2:30pm] so I change my

official baseball cap to one with an NFL team logo. I see the director making signals to me which I didn’t

understand and I was being reprimanded for not wearing the official uniform. […] After the second

incident I got punished again and there was no bonus for me even though we got the incentivized goal.”

– Employee

The second social actors to be defined are the Site Coordinators. They would function as typical

managers if it were not for the multiple functions they carry out and the different disciplines in which

they are engaging. Site Coordinators are basically the administrative authority figure that is between

the TMT and the employees. They do not only oversee that the installations are well maintained and

that the rest of the employees do their job, they also receive payments, give information, receive

complaints, organize the payroll, and coordinate the swimming school (referring to lessons for children,

youths, and adults). This last function, in particular, is the one that best represents the duality of the

STS and HCB meaning systems that is present in the organization. They have to be able to test and

place children according to their different levels, a classification that is not always straight forward, and

they have to coordinate the spaces as to be able to fit the biggest number of clients in the installations.

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The latter becomes a problem due to the seasonality of the business (there is a 7 to 1 ratio of clients in

summer compared to winter) and the former tends to present itself as a problem when the site

coordinator does not have a swimming background.

“Regarding how to teach swimming lesson I didn’t need a course. It was something that I had known

for all my life already. I had that advantage. […] Many coordinators don’t know that, and I had to teach

them how to do things that I would consider basic. Things like not assigning 3 swimming instructors for

5 kids, that is just not necessary, or things like teaching them how to place the kids in their corresponding

level. […] I went to the other site and helped them out and they told me they didn’t know.” – Employee

The duality of the STS and the HCB also cause a different conflict between Swimming Instructors and

Site Coordinators. On the one hand, the belief held by swimming instructors that coaches are the

ultimate authority in concerns with the swimming team and, for that matter, also applying to regular

swimming lessons seems to contradict the authority that the Site Coordinator has when it comes to

organizing or designating the swimming spaces and the swimming levels between that each swimming

instructor will teach. There is a need for communication in a sense that there is an “authority” figure

with ambiguous power of authority. Whether this ambiguousness stems directly from the mix of both

meaning systems or if it may be due to a power dynamic issue, may be further studied but the connection

to the duality of both meaning systems is something that could, at least, be arguably taken into account

as a factor of the ambiguousness.

“One day a coach opted to discipline some swimmers from the team and told them to leave the facilities.

I had to stop them at the entrance because they are not allowed to leave [due to them being too young].

The coach confronts me claiming that she has authority over them and I had to tell her that her authority

ends in the pool and not anywhere else. Even if she has been told otherwise.” – Employee

“The scuba divers arrive and I send them to the side of the pool. While they get ready I quickly finish

what I was doing and head to the pool. One of the coaches was already confronting the scuba divers

asking them to wait until her class was over because classes were prioritized. When I see this, I wasn’t

sure of what to do. The coach had already talked to the scuba divers and I didn’t want to make a scene at

that moment. I had to clarify to the coach after the fact that I can designate the spaces that are going to

be used for every program and that she should comply with my decision.” – Employee

The last group of social actors is the TMT. Out of the three members, two of them were involved in all

three meaning systems, while one of them only got involved with the Aquatic Center 16 years ago. The

three of them were, swimmers and coaches (one exception), they have been businesspersons, and they

are all members of the owning family. Given the long background in the sport, it seems now fitting as

to why one of their business ventures is an Aquatic Center. The TMT is comprised of 3 members that

divide upon themselves operations, finance, administration, and the strategy that concerns the

organization. Additionally, and again, unsurprisingly, the Director of Operations is also the Head Coach

of the swimming teams of each of the sites. The director among supervising the daily operation of the

sites also designs the swimming program for competitive swimmers, adult swimmers, and general

swimming school lessons. The director of administration and finance was also a high-performance

swimmer in the end of the 1980’s under the training of the director of operations. They all have been

involved in different companies before deciding to venture together with an Aquatic Center. The

director of operations had an industrial machine rental service company and the other directors have a

29-year company (Company X in excerpts) that focuses on the sales of marketing article for companies.

Thus, the combination of these qualities and the values bestowed upon them from their core family

influences the organization.

39

“The moto was, ‘We don’t lease machines, we lease service”. I was the general director of the company,

It was a small company at the most around 10 employees. […] The main difference with the Aquatic

Center is that I had less amount of sales, but they tended to be way bigger while the Aquatic Center is

more focused on the volume of sales.” – TMT

The TMT as the heads of the organization, as confirmed by some theories that were discussed in the

literature review, has a big influence on the values that the organization seems to follow. These values,

which seem to be ingrained and pushed by the Owning Family meaning system, whether by education

or role models, also influence the member of the organization and consequently the organization itself.

For example, the value of discipline (work) was perceived or interpreted as one of the most important

values of the Owning Family, while for the employees that value did not rank on their top values, and,

although there is a difference between the number TMT members and the number of employees, the

value discipline still ranked on the top values of the organization with an 85% perception agreement

index. Another important influence of the Owning Family meaning system is the mix of qualities that

are brought into the mix. Past experiences and beliefs from the TMT could be linked to the flexibility

(adaptability) value which refers to the free and open space to use one’s criteria to solve problems in

the organization. This value could be seen to counterpose the need for communication or the need for

formal procedures (not to say that improvement in this aspect is not direly needed).

“There are things that I’ve had to do different from what my partners would’ve wanted. When it comes

to clients losing classes, we have a strict rule of no refunding or rescheduling but given that each

circumstance is different, and some require more attention than the others I try to analyze them

individually. I propose a series of discounts that would make you get your money back if you stay with

us for a certain number of months. I feel it is a nice compromise between our no rescheduling rule and

the clients feeling of attention and service.” – TMT

The TMT is the group of the organization that is the main responsible of emplacing the different

enforcing mechanisms that are applied to the rest of the members of the organization. For example, the

previously mentioned measures of swimming team improvement and number of clients – which is also

a measure that affects site coordinators – for swimming instructors and the daily KPI formats that site

coordinators must fill out that measure aspects of maintenance (water quality) to company policies. It

is a way for the TMT to enforce that which they seem to value the most, discipline and flexibility, by

creating the habit of constantly reviewing one’s own performance indicators as if it were the feedback

loop that characterizes the STS meaning system.

Regarding the enforcement mechanisms in the Aquatic Center there is not much to add given that the

previously mentioned mechanisms take part in the Aquatic Center and the main concern was explaining

from where they originate. There is, however, important expectations concerning the trust that there is

between the members of the TMT. They are fully aware of each other’s capabilities and can expect

specific behaviors and accountability from each other.

“We don’t fight, no. However, we do discuss […] Truth is we are in constant communication, it is strong,

and it truly is productive. Any employee can ask me anything from the commercial department and I’m

able to solve the problem and the same goes in the other way” – TMT

“Without realizing it I am perfectly in-the-know in respect to my partner’s department, I know what my

partner is doing and vice versa.” – TMT

40

“My partners are more organized, administration is their department, mine is operations […] They

basically handle the money and I just ask for it to improve our facilities, our services, and sometimes to

increase an employee’s salary.” – TMT

All of these leaves in place the normative rules – organizational values – along with the expectations

that each member of the organization has to one another, the social actors with their respective

constitutive rules regarding what are their specific tasks and, to some extent, how to prioritize these

tasks, and the different enforcement mechanisms that could be associated with how the social actors

create their specific routines. Nevertheless, one could wonder what the representational rules are or

what taken-for-granted culturally embedded belief is common for the three meaning systems and the

organization itself?

I would argue that there is indeed such a belief, whether consciously or subconsciously thought through,

embedded in the vision of the organization. The vision of the Aquatic Center is, “To become the best

swimming option.”, if we try to think of what it means to be the best, one could reach the conclusion

that it is an unreachable goal. If the main goal of the STS meaning system of improving one’s best

performance, the main goal of the HCB which is to generate profit and growth, and the main goal of

the Owning Family that is to generate wealth to contribute to society we could agree that those goals

are, to an extent, limitless. If improving one’s best performance is the goal then once it is improved

there is another performance to beat, if profit and growth is the goal then the amount of potential profit

and potential space for growth – especially considering new markets – could be never ending, and if

contributing to society, creating opportunity, is the goal then there is potential at the local, regional,

national and international level. Being the best is simply unreachable, it constantly requires discipline

and commitment, it requires collaboration (harmony) and flexibility to adapt to new circumstances and

solve new difficulties, it needs a development plan for the people involved, it also needs communication

and formal processes to achieve the goals in an organized manner, and it most definitely needs the

expertise (know-how) to carry out the specific tasks that are involved. The process of self-improvement

is what could be argued is the embedded cultural belief that encompasses the organization.

Table 2 - Summary of the 3 meaning systems with their symbolic dimensions that influence the

Aquatic Center and it's structures.

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7. Discussion

7.1 Addressing the Research Questions

At the beginning of the thesis we began with two problems, the first one involved understanding how

organizational values of a family business are influenced – or are the outcome of – the interactions

between the controlling family, their employees, and the social context by which they are surrounded.

The second problem stemmed from the lack of research between Organizational Behavior (OB) theories

and Family Business (FB) research that was needed to address the first problem. These problems were

formulated as research questions and were constructed in the following manner, (1) How do

organizational values of a family-owned and -managed business interact in a Hybrid Identity

Organization?, (2) How can Neo Institutional Theory be applied to understand the different identities

that are part of a family-owned Hybrid Identity Organizations?

My initial objective, as I have said before, was to understand the nature of how these values interact in

a family business with a hybrid identity and not simply to focus on how these values influence the

overall performance of the company. On one hand, it could be said that the latter focuses on describing

the more explicit and measurable effects said values have on the organization while the former focuses

on how these values are promoted by different entities – in this case different meaning systems – and

how they influence the behavior of the members of the organization. On the other hand, focusing simply

on describing the effects of organizational values in Family Business, given the amount of literature on

the subject, would not address the gap of research between in OB and FB and, more importantly, would

only have added to a research focus that is frequently investigated.

Being that said, I want to emphasize the importance of the choice of the Aquatic Center as the family-

owned and -managed HIO because it relates to one of the meaning systems, Swimming the Sport. The

expected finding, not a hypothesis, which I thought the data would show was that the values of the

Owning Family or the values of the controlling family would probably be the main influencers of the

Aquatic Center. However, this does not seem to be the case. The swimming side of the organization

and the members of the organization that have been involved in the sport for the most part of their lives

seem to also heavily influence the behavior of the employees. If we re-read the first research question

the reader should be able to notice that it is formulated from a standpoint of how A influences B, the

former being the values – with special emphasis on the family – and the latter the Aquatic Center –

emphasis on the swimming and business identities. The way this question is formulated would seem to

infer that the influence is only unidirectional, however, according to the analysis, it seems to be

multidirectional. The sport, through the members of the organization who have been part of it, has a

strong effect on the behavior of the organization and on how each of the members interprets the needs

of the company. Even the majority of the TMT members have been involved in the sport for most of

their lives and, although the Owning Family has a stronger influence of them, it has definitely influenced

the way in which they understand how growth, discipline, and competition works. It is not only the

Owning Family influencing the Aquatic Center and its members but it is also the Swimming the Sport

meaning system who primarily influences the company.

Applying NIT, its concepts and definitions, importantly aided in the identification of these meaning

systems and how they influence the behavior of the members of the company. Now, even though it is

hard to distinguish whether the TMT has been influenced by the sport – and it probably is the case –

with its representational, constitutive, and normative rules, it is clear that the employees who have a

long background within the sport, as former swimmers and long-time coaches, are motivated by the

same beliefs that seem to motivate the sport. Given these characteristics, as portrayed through a NIT

lens, of the members of the organization – TMT members included –, given their affinity to the sport,

and given this background influences the interactions that happen within the organization, I would

argue, makes the Aquatic Center a particular HIO in which focusing on aligning this competencies can

42

prove to be valuable long term decision. It may be even considered one of the most important assets of

the Aquatic Center. Perhaps, the previously mentioned TMT concern with formalizing the procedures

of the organization or improving the general communication should be addressed secondarily and not

prioritized, even if it may be the taken-for-granted belief or expected behavior favored by the Health

Center Business meaning system.

7.2 Implications

The first question addresses the main problem of the study which, as stated before, relates to

understanding how the organizational values of a family business influence or are influenced by the

interaction between the owning family, the employees, and the social context of the organization. Given

that the knowledge that was generated by answering this question will probably be employed in one or

another manner, it is important to address that different implications that the knowledge inherently

possesses.

From a societal and ethical perspective, the main implications this knowledge produces concerns the

employees of the company. They are the most vulnerable unit of study because of their position in the

company and the unbalance of power that exists between them and TMT. To counteract or

counterbalance these implications different measures were taken during the empirical data gathering.

The most important of these measures were the application of the ethical principles, as proposed by

Bryman & Bell (2011), particularly harm to participants and lack of informed consent. The employees

were clearly explained that their participation in this was completely voluntary and completely

anonymous. This was done through an initial email explaining the details of the study and they were

later reminded at the beginning of each interview (see Appendix A and Appendix B). Beside

guaranteeing them that the interviews were going to be anonymous and that the participation was

voluntary. They were also offered one more opportunity to decide whether or not they would like a

certain part of their interview to be omitted.

Societally, the implications have more to do with the impact any changes to the work environment or

the structures of the organizations may have in its members and their social context. Positive or

negative, consequences, are inevitable for those who are part of the social reality of the organization. It

may be implications in the lives of the employees, the dynamics of the family, the service for the

customers, or the overall social impact of the organization. Minimizing the possible negative

consequences of this implication may be hard or perhaps impossible to completely realize but,

nonetheless, should be carefully analyzed and supervised as to maintain them as minimal as possible.

If further research is done within the HIO field may, perhaps, incentivize HIOs to understand how they

can leverage their multiple identities to create a more cohesive and motivated work environment. NIT

theory provide a rich set of concepts, definitions, and processes that are suited to understand how

different identities, meaning systems, or institutional forces collide within this type of organization.

Thus, there is a strong implication that relates to the administration of HIOs that could be potentially

implemented. That would be, of course, after more research is done to further expand on the knowledge

of organizations.

Academically, the possible implications this study may have are perhaps related to the particularity of

the case study. Although the application of NIT in a family-owned and -managed HIO, such as this

Aquatic Center, was successful and seems to explain the phenomenon in focus, this may not be the case

for other HIOs. This may be the case that the application of NIT only applies to this Aquatic Center.

Further studies of a similar nature should be conducted in order to increase the generalizability of the

conclusions of this study.

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7.3 Limitations

The main limitations that surrounded the study had to do with the limited amount of time, that is inherent

in many master degree theses, the language in which the empirical data was gathered, my position as

researcher and member of the owning family, and the limitations imposed by the outbreak of COVID19.

The limited amount of time played a crucial role given that the empirical gathering of the data had to

take place in Mexico. So, there was only a 40-period in which the data could be taken, transcribed, and

briefly analyzed to make suitable adjustments or focused observations. Another limitation was the time

to analyze in a more documented manner the meaning systems, to employ an analysis of their

documentation and their history to better explain the better describe the symbolic rules and institutional

dimensions that are involved in each system.

The language of the interview and, for that matter, observations present themselves as a limitation due

to translation. During the data gathering period the interviewees, as subjects of the study, were able to

express themselves in Spanish. Translating certain phrases from their native language to English is

sometimes not directly possible, perhaps there is no direct word equivalent in English, the meaning of

the phrase is subject to a certain tone in which it was said, or may even have different meaning

depending on the social context in which it was said. Although translating the empirical data from its

native language to English has its clear disadvantages, it also presents some advantages. The first one,

and perhaps most obvious one, has to do with being able to get the data, given that most of the study

subjects do not speak English. Most importantly, the second one is granting them the opportunity of

expressing themselves in their own language with their own native expressions which provided a richer

and deeper meaning to the answers of the interviewees.

The limitation that was embedded with my position as both researcher and member of the family was

described in the introduction of this thesis, nevertheless, it is important to readdress. There were two

main issues with this limitation. The first one involves any possible interviewer bias that I may cause

during the interviews because of my position – or future position – in the company. This position may

change or influence the behavior and the answers of the interviewees and may bias my findings.

However, interviewer bias of this kind also has its advantages, there is already trust between interviewer

and interviewee, there is a rapport that has been built since the company was founded. Besides when

making observations and having different conversations my position granted me access with a

normalize presence within the social context. This helped me corroborate the data I got from the

interviews with some of the data from observations and conversations that was also captured.

The second limitation that is inherent to my position is the influence that my family and my time being

part of the company’s social context has on the way I think and interpret its reality. The discourse that

I have been subjected to throughout all the interactions I have had with my family have influenced my

way of thinking and, very possibly, the way in which I view, Aquatic Center included, the world and

its social reality. Minimizing or addressing the limitations that are inherent to my role as researcher and

member of the owning family may not be possible, nonetheless, transparency and strictly following the

methods may be enough to grant enough objectivity to my analysis and my conclusions to produce a

reliable and viable study.

The outbreak of COVID19 at the end of February of 2020 also imposed a major limitation to the scope

of this study. The original scope of the study intended to include customers as a unit of analysis,

however, the measures adopted by local, state and federal authorities in Mexico made their inclusion

not possible. The company had to close down due to the sanitary contingency on Monday March 16 of

2020 and to this date, June 2020, are still in process of reopening the sites. Due to the limited amount

of time, explained in the first limitation, the inclusion of the clients, unfortunately, could not be done.

Hopefully, this limitation may be addressed from a future research perspective to explain how they are

influenced and how they influence the organizational values of the Aquatic Center.

44

These limitations, as in any other study, are sometimes inherent to the circumstances in which the

research takes place and are not always avoidable. Besides explicitly mentioning each of these

limitations and being transparent about them, which by itself is important to the implications that this

research may have, different actions were taken to minimize the impact and influence of said limitations

with the hopes of producing a more objective thesis.

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8. Conclusion

8.1 Organizational Values and The Power of Multiple

Institutional Logics

Organizational values in a family-owned and -managed HIO seem to be an outcome of the interaction

of the different identities –institutional logics– that characterize the organization. In this case the

institutional forces that influenced the company were the sport logic (swimming), the business logic,

and the family logic. Each of these have their own representational rules, constitutive rules, normative

rules, and enforcement mechanisms that characterizes them as a specific meaning system that influences

the Aquatic Center and its organizational values. The Aquatic Center can be seen as a mix of these three

meaning systems that, according to the analysis, influence different members of the organization in a

different manner, even if all three influence the organization at the same time. The concepts that are put

forth by NIT proved to be an important aid in understanding how the different identities in an HIO, in

this case a family-owned Aquatic Center, interact with one another. Being able to conceptualize the

cultural beliefs, normative expectations, and regulative dimensions of each of the identities provides a

clear and structured framework from which one can understand how these, somewhat contradictory,

identities can coexist in a hybrid identity organization.

Addressing how different identities interact within a family business is important because of the role

these companies, as explained in the literature review, play in the world’s economy. Although there is

some literature that relates values with FB research, the focus of these studies tends to revolve around

the effect these values have on the performance of the company and not towards the source of origin of

said values or how are these influenced by the different identities that characterize a Family Business.

For these matters, Organizational Behavior (OB) theories, which focus on how people interact together

within groups, are particularly suited to understanding how individual behavior is influenced by the

social context that surrounds organizations. On the other hand, applying OB theories within a FB

environment also aids in the generalizability and validity of its theories. Addressing this OB-FB

research gap, as this case study has done, should be seen as a way of increasing the relevancy of OB

theories for not only family business management, but, for business management as a whole.

During the daily challenges that this modern and more connected world presents it is particularly

relevant to understand the role(s) our institutions play in every-day life. Although the focus of the study

was one family-owned Aquatic Center it was still possible to show how three meaning systems, which

interact together only within the specific organizations, affect and counterbalance each other

influencing the behavior of the members of the organization. These forces do not disappear in a moment

of crisis, such as the outbreak of COVID19, they instead seem to be ever more present serving as strong

support pillars or reference points that guide organizations, particularly HIOs given their different

inherent logics, through the crisis. Therefore, there seems to be an important area where NIT, along

with its concepts and processes, can be applied to understand family businesses, especially family

businesses that also have three or more identities with different competing expectations. Understanding

the interaction of these logics, through a NIT lens, can be crucial for the strategy or even survival of the

company.

The relevancy for the case company, however, relies broadly in the use of the generated knowledge of

how these three different forces drive and influence the members of the company and, consequently,

attempt to improve the working environment of the organization. Just as with any HIO, aligning

46

competing expectations, is important for the Aquatic Center’s legitimacy and working efficiency and

to address this issue the organization, or in this case the TMT, should identify and understand the

different logics that presently influence the company. Nonetheless, from a more specific point of view

the relevancy for the company comes from the alternatives that this new knowledge provides

particularly with the aligning competing expectations. Having the awareness of whether or not adopting

different measures and policies – isomorphic forces – on behalf of a single identity may promote a

proper and better oriented growth path. As discussed in the previous section, perhaps focusing on

prioritizing employees that have been part in swimming as a sport and, eventually, as a professional

worker can be a powerful differentiator.

The values that the employees possess tend to be instilled from their external environments and,

although the FB literature suggest otherwise, from the institutional forces that are part of these

environments and not mainly from the controlling family. It may be the case that this is a specific

characteristic of HIOs and that these characteristics would not apply to a single-identity family business.

Although this is a case study, and thus not generalizable for the whole population, I would argue that

HIOs, as is this family-owned and -managed Aquatic Center, does not have to align “competing”

expectations and that these, in the case of the Aquatic Center, actually are compatible with each of the

identities that were described.

In summary, the use of OB theories like NIT and HIO have proven to be strong and insightful tools to

analyze how organizational values interact in a family-owned and -managed business with multiple

identities. Identities that, in this case, exert institutional forces on the organization influencing its

members and the social context in which they interact. Understanding how this phenomenon will

provide the TMT with knowledge that can be focused to increasing the efficiency of the company by

aligning, as much as possible, the contradictory identities of the organization. At the same time,

addressing the OB-FB research gap will aid in increasing the generalizability and the relevance of

different OB theories. The knowledge generated through the application of OB theories, either by

applying them in a new field under new variables or even by failing to explain the specific phenomena

of a specific study, will be useful to further develop said theories.

8.2 Contributions and Further Research

The main contributions of this study can be divided into two main categories. The first one is the

academic contributions that are mainly a product of addressing the research gap between Organizational

Behavior Studies and the field of Family Business research. The reasons why this gap exists between

these two fields of research has been addressed in the literature review. Nevertheless, this research

aimed to employ OB theories, particularly NIT, to explain how it could be applied to understand the

different identities that are part of Hybrid Identity Organizations and perhaps shed light into the theory

themselves or point to a direction where future research could be made. In this case study, the latter was

the case. Although there were no particularly new insights with respect to NIT conceptualization or

understanding, I would argue that there are indeed some interesting directions in which further NIT

studies could be carried out.

Some benefits of employing a NIT lens as a framework may indeed be emphasized. For example, to

understand the present and past influences of different institutional forces on an organization. In this

case NIT was flexible and practical, at least for HIOs, to identify and understand the origins and

influential forces that affect organizational values. An interesting area of opportunity that could be

analyzed in future research, perhaps in a longitudinal study, is how good of a model is NIT to be used

reliably to make changes to an organization? Is there any predictability in it? How efficient are the

diffusion mechanisms in pushing isomorphism?

47

Another dimension and one that I find more interesting is to analyze the power dynamics in a family

business between the owning family, employees, and the organization itself. It seems to be that,

according to value research in family business, the owning family exerts a really strong force on their

business. Or could it be that the different identities of a HIO could be leveraged in a way in which the

values of the controlling family are not the most influential? Where would this force originate? Is it an

institutionalization process with origin in the family as the institution? Is there legitimacy involved

when values are negotiated? Is this force measurable in some way? These questions pose interesting

challenges and may perhaps shed new light on NIT.

However, the principal conclusion that I believe to be more valuable to the field is that NIT is

particularly well constructed to understand the past trajectory and the present institutional forces that

are in place in Hybrid Identity Organizations. Given that HIO involves at least two different logics that,

if they fulfill the requirements stated by Albert et al.’s (1998) model of the 3I’s, may be considered

institutional forces. Thus, family business, being a HIO, would benefit from the employment of NIT in

significant manner.

In the other hand, the main contribution for the case company is the identification and understanding of

how organizational values are influenced by the different identities that characterize HIOs. This study

puts the organization in a position in which they can focus on adapting, modifying, and creating

different structures to increase the efficiency of the organization while at the same time addressing the

needs of their employees. It also opens up an alternative, which may or may not be followed by other

HIOs, to leverage one of the identities of a HIO to exploit the uniqueness of said organization as a long-

term value offer with long-term profits in mind.

Also important is the concept of legitimacy for the company and the understanding that, even though

mimicking different process for the sake of legitimacy can be detrimental for the company’s efficiency,

working to create a larger, stronger, and more homogeneous group of companies with similar

characteristics may increase the chances of survival of the company. This may be particularly

exemplified with the current outbreak of COVID19, for example, SMEs and private companies using

their collective power as leverage against the government to gain resources or different benefits.

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54

Appendix

Appendix A

Semi-Structured Interview

Questions for the Top Management Team

I would like to start by saying that this interview is 100% confidential. I will be the only one with

access to the names of the interviewees and the recorded material will be deleted once the thesis is

approved. The transcriptions of each interview will be identified by a job position which may be

either “employee” or “TMT” so that it is possible to refer back to said transcript in the thesis.

Nevertheless, if someone is named during the interview, whoever it may be, their name will be

changed so that it can not be connected to the you [the interviewee] or to the person you may be

referring to in the interview.

The principal focus of this interview are organizational values. These values can be defined as the

beliefs or habits shared by members of an organization with the objective to reach their social or

personal goals in a socially acceptable manner.

For example, “In Company X we strive to have the most sustainable processes” or “Our principal

concern is customer satisfaction” or “We are a premium brand that constantly seeks to fulfill with

every standard of quality”.

In the previous examples we could assume that the organizational values of said companies may be

linked to sustainability, customer satisfaction, and high quality.

On the other hand, as a secondary objective, it is also important to see if there is a connection between

the values of the family, the organization, and the employees.

Lastly, I would like to add that this is a two-way conversation and if you would happen to have any

questions you are more than welcomed to ask them.

Any doubts?

A. Introduction

1. May you please tell me what is your age and the main role you perform in the

company?

2. In total, how many years have you been working? Or, if its easier, when did you

started to work?

B. Previous Work and/or Previous Companies

1. Besides your job in the Aquatic Center, what other types of jobs have you had or do

you have?

2. In concern with the working environment, how would you compare your different job

positions or your different companies with the Aquatic Center?

i. Which difficulties do you think the Aquatic Center has that may be different

to the ones of your other companies/jobs?

ii. Which strengths do you see in the Aquatic Center that may be different to the

ones of your other companies/jobs?

55

3. Which values, attitudes or capabilities would you have liked to be able to change in

your previous work or companies?

i. What differences would they have made?

ii. Why do you think they would have had that effect?

4. Concerning the strategic decision-making, how did those decisions were made? Was

there any specific process?

i. Which measures were taken if those decisions did not produce the desired

outcome?

5. If you had different partners or colleagues, how did you divide the work between

yourself?

6. What are the most important lessons that you learned in your previous

work/company?

i. How would you apply does lessons in the Aquatic Center?

C. Present Company

1. How would you describe the working environment of the Aquatic Center?

i. Can you describe an example were that description is exemplified?

ii. Which values do you think are advantageous for improving the work

environment in the Aquatic Center?

iii. Which attitudes do you think are harmful for the Aquatic Center? Why do

you think they are harmful?

2. Is the transmission of values something that concerns you within the company?

i. Why is it so? What benefits could be obtained from it?

ii. Why is it not so?

3. Which would you consider to be the organizational values of the company?

i. Which one would you think is the most important?

ii. Would you mind if I share your answer with the other two members of the

TMT?

4. Do the employees know which are the organizational values of the company?

5. How do you think values are transmitted within the company?

i. Is there any specific method that’s being used? Formal or informal

communication?

ii. Do you think there is a more effective way?

6. Which is or which are the main differences between the way you work compared to

the way your employees work?

i. Are you able to see a generational difference?

ii. Do you one way is better than the other?

iii. Which aspect of their way of working would you consider negative as

compared to your way of working? Why?

iv. Which aspect of their way of working would you consider positive as

compared to your way of working? Why?

7. Which organizational values do you see in the rest of the members of the TMT?

i. What are their strengths?

ii. What are their weaknesses?

D. Social

Now we are going to focus on how you would describe your community from a social point

of view and from your inner circle of close friends and family.

56

1. Starting with your inner circle of close people, how would you generally describe the

values with which your family identifies itself?

i. Where do you think these values originated?

ii. Do you think these values have change through the past events and years?

iii. Which would you consider to be the most important values of your family?

Why?

iv. With which family values do you not identify yourself? Why?

2. In a general way, how would you describe the normal day-to-day interaction with

your family?

i. How are these interactions now?

ii. Have you noticed any differences as years have passed?

3. Do you think that events happening in the family affect the business?

i. May you provide an example of these events?

ii. If so, in what way did the business was impacted due to said event?

4. Which family values would you like to be reflected in the Aquatic Center?

i. Why?

ii. Do you feel it may have a negative impact in the company?

iii. Why?

5. What are the attitudes, traditions, and object that are most valued in your family?

6. Concerning your social circle, do you think that the environment and the culture of

the society that surrounds us affect the company?

i. How do you think this affects the Aquatic Center and/or any of your other

companies?

ii. What do you think are the most important problems we face as a society?

iii. How do you think this affects our clients?

iv. In a general way, how would you like to confront these problems?

v. How should the company respond? Should it remain steady or should it

change?

vi. In your opinion, what strengths do you think we have as a society to confront

these situations?

vii. What are our weaknesses?

7. Do you feel that companies have a moral obligation with society?

i. Why?

ii. If positive, is there any short or long term plan which is intended to help

society?

1. How do you think such plan will work?

iii. If negative, do you think it would advantageous that companies seek to help

society?

1. How would these plans help?

E. Closing

1. To conclude, what is your main motivation to continue working? What is your main

aspiration?

57

Appendix B

Semi-Structured Interview

Questions for the Top Management Team

I would like to start by saying that this interview is 100% confidential. I will be the only one with

access to the names of the interviewees and the recorded material will be deleted once the thesis is

approved. The transcriptions of each interview will be identified by a job position which may be

either “employee” or “TMT” so that it is possible to refer back to said transcript in the thesis.

Nevertheless, if someone is named during the interview, whoever it may be, their name will be

changed so that it can not be connected to the you [the interviewee] or to the person you may be

referring to in the interview.

The principal focus of this interview are organizational values. These values can be defined as the

beliefs or habits shared by members of an organization with the objective to reach their social or

personal goals in a socially acceptable manner.

For example, “In Company X we strive to have the most sustainable processes” or “Our principal

concern is customer satisfaction” or “We are a premium brand that constantly seeks to fulfill with

every standard of quality”.

In the previous examples we could assume that the organizational values of said companies may be

linked to sustainability, customer satisfaction, and high quality.

On the other hand, as a secondary objective, it is also important to see if there is a connection between

the values of the family, the organization, and the employees.

Lastly, I would like to add that this is a two-way conversation and if you would happen to have any

questions you are more than welcomed to ask them.

Any doubts?

A. Introduction

1. May you please tell me what is your age and the main role you perform in the

company?

2. In total, how many years have you been working? Or, if its easier, when did you

started to work?

B. Previous Work Experiences

1. Have you had any previous work experience before the Aquatic Center?

i. If positive:

1. What type of work did you have? How long did you work there?

2. What was the role you perform in said company? May you describe

the types of problems you faced?

3. How did you feel in that job?

4. How would you describe the work environment of that job?

5. Did you like that work environment?

6. If you could change anything form that job what would it be?

7. How would you describe your boss?

8. Did you like the way in which he or she worked?

58

9. How would you describe the relationship with your colleagues? Did

you like working with them?

10. [If applicable] How would you describe your relationship with

customers?

11. How would you evaluate your previous boss’ work? Which would be

his or her strengths? Which would be his or her areas of

opportunities?

12. What strengths would he or she think you have?

13. What area of opportunities would you think he or she would sya you

have?

ii. Negative:

1. How did you imagine your first job was going to be? What kind of

work environment did you imagine it would have?

2. What type of experiences did you expect to have?

3. How did you imagine your colleagues were going to be? The clients?

Your bosses?

C. Present Work

1. How would you describe your work functions in the Aquatic Center?

2. Have you had to do any other type of work in the company? How did it make you

feel?

3. Could describe what is the work environment of the Aquatic Center?

4. Which may be some area of opportunities for the company?

5. How would you improve them?

6. How would you describe a typical day during summer? How would you describe it

during winter?

7. What type of problems do you face in your job?

8. How do you face those problems?

9. What is your relationship with the customers?

10. Have you had any comments, suggestions, or complaints? If so, how did you face

them?

11. In your opinion, what would be the best way to treat clients?

12. How is your relationship with your colleagues?

13. What type of experiences have you had with your colleagues?

14. Do you see each other outside of the workplace?

15. How is your relationship with the TMT?

16. What kind of topic do you address with them? Do you feel comfortable expressing

your ideas?

17. How would you evaluate the TMT? What are their strengths and what are their area

of opportunities?

18. What strengths do you think they recognize in you?

19. What area of opportunities do you think they recognize in you?

D. Social

Now we are going to focus on how you would describe your community from a social point

of view and from your inner circle of close friends and family.

1. Starting by your inner circle of people, how would you describe the environment that

surrounds you?

59

2. Do you like the way in which you relate to them?

i. If so, why?

ii. If not, why not? What would you change?

3. What are the attitudes, traditions, and objects that you value the most?

4. If you could change anything, what would it be?

5. Regarding your community, how would you describe the environment in the city?

6. What do you like and dislike about the environment in the city?

7. What would you like to change and why?

8. How do you relate to people around your community? Do you frequent festivals,

parks, protests, etc.?

9. What type of challenges do you think we face?

10. In your opinion, do you think we have the strengths to overcome them?

11. What would be our weaknesses?

E. Closing

1. To conclude, if you were hired exclusively as a consultant for the company, what

aspects of the work environment would you try to change? What would be the most

important one?