2.3 Nepotism
According to the Oxford English dictionary, the origin of nepotism is
derived from the Latin word for “nephew” or “nepot”. These words
also mean the children of a person’s brother or sister, namely
“nephew”, “cousin”. Nepotism means special support of relatives
(especially in terms of employment) by a person of a higher position
(Hornby, 1985: 566). Nepotism is characterized as support or assistance
presented based on family relationship and not of legitimacy (Milgram,
L., et al. 1999: 263).
Today, nepotism is used for people who abuse their position for the
benefit of their family (Ford and McLaughlin, 1985: 57). The idea of
nepotism, which may appear rational and characteristic, is by and large
connected with a negative situation by organizations (Asunakutlu and
Avcı, 2010). Favoritism is a practice providing not only employment to
family members, friends and acquaintances but also many other benefits
such as promotions and raises. From this point of view, the concept of
nepotism is considered as a non-professional behavior (Büte, 2011b:138).
Nepotism is a more common phenomenon in the family businesses of
countries where traditional ties and relations are intense, and the
marketing system is underdeveloped, but it is also encountered in
developed countries (Özsemerci, 2002: 13). One of the basic attributes
of family organizations is ”nepotism”, signifying ”the contracting and
headway of inadequate or underqualified relatives just by prudence of
their relationship to a representative, official or investor” (Wong &
Kleiner, 1994). In recruitment for and appointment to organizational
tasks, the principle of merit is replaced by personal factors such as
kinship and blood ties, rather than skills, level of education and job
applicability (Büte, 2011, p. 137-138).
An examination of a connection uncovered a significant relationship
between preference, worker execution and HRM resources, while nepotism
has a critical relationship with representative exhibition. The results
of the research disclosed an altogether negative impact of nepotism on
worker execution and HRM resources (Yasmeen, Bibi & Raza, 2019:39)
Hayajenh, Maghrabi and Al-Dabbagh (1994, p.51) reported that ”nepotism
practices negatively affect representatives, the board and associations.
This negative effect has prompted different bothersome qualities, for
example, workers’ non-attendance/turnover, board disillusionment,
disappointment and stress and association in execution.”
The conflict is between the competent employees of the field and
“nepotism”, which may generate dissatisfied workers who are less
motivated to work (Brandts and Sola, 2006). Nepotism is a situation
which creates victims and often harms organizational relations (Arasli
et al., 2006: 295).Despite all these disadvantages, people continue to
use kinship relationships to get their jobs done more quickly (Meriç &
Erdem, 2013: 469). Nepotism is all the more noticeably the reason for
strife if there should be an occurrence of enrollment or advancement of
a family relative (Abdalla et al., 1998).