FORMA ACTUAL DE COSTEO DE LA VÁLVULA EN LA PLANTA ESACONTROL

Participants did not talk much about employee-employer relationships, but when they did they used the same metaphors of “family” and “friendship” in describing their relationships with their workforce as they did in customer service and in relationships with customers and suppliers. Statements like “we like to think about ourselves as an internal family, as everybody is like a family member in the business” (Khalida, retail owner) and “the environment is family oriented, everybody working here is like a member of a big family” (Saima, retail manager) were frequently made, manifesting the collectivist culture (Hofstede, 1984) within these businesses. What they meant by “family” was not necessarily biological kinship. According to Saima (retail manager), “even if you're not related to them they treat you like a family member.” Qamar exemplified the

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type of employee-employer relationships that seemingly exist in these businesses and its underpinnings as:

… most of workers working here were working for our business while we were growing up, so for me personally, it's a type of uncle-nephew relationship… it's based on very much friendly terms and open relationships between the owners and the staff and also it never happened that we had to push them to the limits and made them realise that they are the workers and we are the owners… we work like a family. (Qamar, retail and wholesale owner)

What can be seen as overwhelmingly common in the data is the repetition of the metaphor “family.” The concept of “family” seems to have a special meaning for participants in this study. First, they used this metaphor for customers in the context of customer service, again for customers in customer relationships followed by supplier relationships, and now for members of staff. As mentioned earlier, they seem to relate the groups of people whom they consider important for their businesses as “family.” They claim to be dealing with these groups with the utmost respect. According to Choudhry (2001), family is regarded very highly in South Asian ethnic culture. He and Ibrahim and Galt (2011) imply that in South Asian culture the needs of family members often supersede one’s own personal needs. According to Victor et al. (2012), these are ethnic cultural values in South Asians in the UK, which are, perhaps, different from the values held/practiced by the Anglo-Saxon mainstream community.

That said, while these groups (customers, suppliers, and staffs) have not been interviewed, and thus, their views/opinions are unknown. It might be the case that these participants do treat their customers, suppliers and the workforce like they treat their own families. However, do the needs of these groups of people take precedence over their own personal needs? Will they consider the needs of these groups of people to be as important as the needs of their own personal or the needs of their family members? Though these questions were not posed to participants, based on the data, the answers most probably will be ‘no.’ At times it was implicitly cited by the participants that their underlying aim is

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meeting their commercial objectives. Therefore, it may be argued that the use of this type of language and the manifestation of this type of behaviour is, perhaps, a means to meet their own commercial goals.

In addition, there may be another meaning that can be inferred from what Qamar and many others in this study showed by saying “they treat you like a family member”, or “it's a type of uncle-nephew relationship”, or we do not “push them to the limits.” That is, these phrases perhaps reveal the pervasiveness of informality, or informal relationships, which is argued to work well not only in ethnic minority firms (Ram et al., 2001 ; Jones et al., 2006), but also in all small and medium enterprises in general (Wapshott and Mallett, 2015 ; Woodhams and Lupton, 2006). Moreover, the informality ‘is seen by many small business owner/managers as one of their main sources of competitive advantage’ (Woodhams and Lupton, 2009, p. 205). The point that informality, a set of unwritten informal but highly contextual rules governing the employee-employer relationships (Ram et al., 2001), works for these businesses was epitomised as: “because it's a small business, and it's easier for us to be informal and friendly with them, and that is working for us” (Mubashar, retail owner); and “when there is quiet time we all just chill-out and we relax and take it easy but when there is busy times they know what to do” (Rubi, retail and wholesale owner).

Besides extending extant scholarship, this study takes the debate of employee- employer relationships in small firms further at least in two angles. Firstly, the recurring of the metaphors “family” and “friendship” reinforces the notion that this business community uses social relationships to meet instrumental ends and that their shared cultural heritage enables them to do so. Secondly, the perceived informality in employee-employer relationships in this sector perhaps breeds employee loyalty. This last point is implicitly reinforced by Mukhtar:

… we have very low staff turnover in our business, so there are people who have been working for us over 20 years, so we have a long-term relationship with our employees... (Mukhtar, retail and wholesale manager)

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As portrayed in the above snippet, the perceived informality points that employee loyalty is perhaps a function of the “family” like “long-term relationships.” An important insight needs to be drawn here. In contrast to the view that long hours of work in ethnic minority businesses create inevitably undesirable consequences, such as tiredness and lack of respite (Ahmad, 2008a), these participants seem to believe that the long hours of work actually contribute to the creation of “family” like working environments, as articulated by Kuldeep:

… we don't treat them as employees… we have a lot of staff who have been working for us for 15 to 16 years, so over the many years, it became like… members of our own family… we deal with them six days a week from 10am to 7.30pm, we see them more than our own family members. (Kuldeep, retail and wholesale owner)

This notion was backed up by Khalida (retail owner): “in 24 hours the best time you spend is at work… with these people, with your team.” On a superficial level, her statement might be indicating that these workers suffer from what Ahmad (2008a, p. 308) described as: lack of ‘free time in the evenings, weekends or… less recuperation time at home.’ Khalida, however, clarified: “it is very important to have knowledge about each other and each other's interests.” It is perhaps this perceived informal “knowledge” that acts as a means to an end in creating an environment that is conducive to all in the workplace. In return, this environment is perhaps framed as what Woodhams and Lupton (2009, p. 206) called internally developed ‘good business practices.’

However, the owners, and to some extent the managers too, might be happy for their workforce to work for long hours, irrespective of any consequences for the workforce. Thus, their perceptions may be a reflection of a biased one-sided- only view. Since employees’ viewpoints were not sought in this study, it is difficult to warrant, or challenge, the perceptions of the employers/managers.

In addition, some participants believed that the longevity of the relationship is a reflection of perceived employee satisfaction: “they [are] happy that's why they

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have been working for us for so long” (Mukhtar, retail and wholesale manager). But what is employee satisfaction or employee job satisfaction? According to Nebeker et al. (2001, p. 30, cited in Locke, 1976, p. 1307), employee satisfaction or employee ‘job satisfaction is an emotional reaction that ‘‘results from the perception that one’s job fulfills or allows the fulfillment of one’s important job values, providing and to the degree that those values are congruent with one’s needs.’’’ Others linked the “family” like treatment to employee satisfaction and to loyalty. Kuldeep’s viewpoint is a typical exemplar:

… we treat them like family members, and that's why most people do not leave us… we tend to keep them as well by not only treating them as members of our own family but also by giving them other benefits such as mobile phones and cars, which they can use even if they are not at work… they are not only sales people, they are more than that. (Kuldeep, retail and wholesale owner)

Kuldeep’s narrative, which implies that employee satisfaction leads to employee loyalty, seems to be in accordance with what Nebeker et al. (2001, p. 30) have argued ‘It is presumed that when employees are satisfied with their jobs, they will behave differently than when they are dissatisfied.’ His perception also seems to be in accordance with the argument made by Grewal et al. (2017), employee loyalty can translate into customer loyalty, perhaps, because many of the employees and their relatives and friends, become loyal customers (through positive word of mouth) of the business even after they quit.

More importantly, Kuldeep provided a thought-provoking nuance, although it was a lone viewpoint - worthy of mentioning. He seems to believe that employee loyalty is not necessarily the outcome of merely “treat[ing] them like family”, but the claim that they treat employees well has to be translated into tangible benefits for employees. While employees have not been asked about their feelings, opinions, and/or experiences in this study, elsewhere Becker (1996a) and Wright and McMahan (2011) have argued that if staff are not remunerated appropriately, they might adopt opportunistic behaviours, leaving the firm at a competitive disadvantage.

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In sum, extant scholarship argues that small businesses, in general, face resource limitations and cannot afford formal employee management processes (Woodhams and Lupton, 2006 ; Madden et al., 2006 ; Besser, 2012 ; Thompson et al., 1993). They, therefore, tend to manage employee-employer relationships informally as an alternative, which happens to work well for them (Ram et al., 2001 ; Wapshott and Mallett, 2015 ; Marlow, 2003). The sample businesses are no exception. Informality was claimed by the participants to widely exist in their businesses, including in employee-employer relationships, and was felt to be working for them.

The most intriguing finding in this study (discussed in the previous chapter) is perhaps the claim, which the participants made consistently, that they treat individuals, or groups of individuals, whom they consider important for their businesses as “family” and/or “friends.” Data indicated that treating people like “family” and/or “friends” apparently leads to “loyalty.” Whenever they referred to any group of people as “family” and/or “friends” their narratives were implicitly, if not explicitly, followed by the concept of “loyalty.” They seem to believe that it is the loyalty of their customers, suppliers, and the workforce that warrants the successful continuity of their businesses. They seem to believe that customer loyalty generates repeat business; supplier loyalty ensures successful and cost- effective procurement; whereas employee loyalty leads to the increased customer base in addition to customer loyalty, because satisfied employees make satisfied customers (Grewal et al., 2017 ; Nebeker et al., 2001).

That said, since customers, suppliers, and the workforce were not interviewed, the perceptions of the participants can be considered as their personal conjectures, or un-stated/not-vividly declared aim of meeting their commercial goals disguised in these relationships. The last type of relationship that this study discusses is related to gender.

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