When Staying Becomes Survival: Coping, Endurance, and Self-Preservation in Nepotistic Organisations

Abstract

Research on organisational nepotism has mainly examined its consequences for fairness perceptions, organisational climate, employee silence, withdrawal, commitment, and turnover intention. Less is known about how employees continue to function when they remain in organisational environments they perceive as nepotistic. This study explores how non-family employees cope with, endure, and protect themselves under continued exposure to perceived organisational nepotism. An interpretivist qualitative design guided by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight non-family employees from three family-owned organisations in Malaysia’s oil and gas industry, and the data were analysed idiographically before cross-case patterns were examined. The findings show that remaining in a perceived nepotistic organisation should not be read automatically as acceptance or continued commitment. Participants’ accounts indicate an evolving process in which employees normalise prolonged unfairness, manage expectations, distance themselves psychologically, preserve professional integrity, draw on trusted relationships, and assess exit readiness when the personal or professional cost of staying becomes too high. Drawing on Conservation of Resources Theory as an interpretive lens, the article conceptualises self-preservation as a resource-conservation process through which employees attempt to protect psychological, professional, relational, and future career resources under persistent perceived unfairness. The study contributes to organisational nepotism research by shifting attention from employee outcomes alone to the lived process through which employees remain, adapt, and protect themselves while recognising exit as a possible survival response.