Examining stewardship in family firms, exploring the role of growth, career, and autonomy on the Accountant’s psychological intention to stay
Abstract
Purpose: The present research examines how professional accountants’ growth orientation, career opportunities, and autonomy form psychological ownership and their intention to stay, eventually nurturing stewardship behavior in the family-owned firms. Furthermore, it explores the organizational settings rather than family identification permits stewardship in an emerging economy.
Design/methodology/approach: Based on a self-administered cross-sectional survey of 396 practicing accountants employed in family firms. Structural equation modeling was applied to analyze the hypotheses among the accountant’s growth, career, autonomy, psychological ownership, intention to stay, and ultimately stewardship behavior.
Findings: Overall, the results indicate that growth orientation, career opportunities, and professional autonomy significantly strengthen psychological ownership and intention to stay, ultimately strengthening stewardship behavior. Furthermore, results present that stewardship among non-family accountants emerges from workplace arrangements and psychological environments that nurture identification, obligation, accountability, and sustained affiliation.
Practical implications: Family firms can augment stewardship by nurturing growth orientation environments, proposing obvious career pathways, and allowing expressive autonomy. Such practices support retaining proficient accountants, diminish agency-driven propensities, and ensure long-term organizational stability.
Originality/value: The present research advances stewardship theory by signifying that such behavior in family-owned firms is empowered through structural and psychological tools rather than intrinsic family association. Furthermore, it contributes novel insights on how professional accountants, an overlooked population, yield stewardship-affiliated behaviors within the institutional setting of emerging economies.
Keywords: Accountants, growth, career, and autonomy
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18240308
