The construct of place attachment in family and non-family businesses: validation of a measurement tool.

PURPOSE: Place attachment enables CEOs to leverage local resources, access information, and seize business opportunities, thereby enhancing firm performance. However, its influence may va-ry between family and non-family firms due to the family’s socioeconomic ties, nonfinancial goals and local community engagement. This study introduces the multidimensional construct of place attachment to business research, extending its theoretical foundations from environmental psychology to organizational studies. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Drawing from survey data of 528 French firms, this study uses a stepwise empirical strategy – combining exploratory factor analysis and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS–SEM) – to test and va-lidate the construct of place attachment and examine its relationship with firm performance. FIN-DINGS: Place attachment emerges as a reflective second-order construct composed of five dimen-sions: place identity, place dependence, nature bonding, family bonding and friend bonding. Mul-tigroup analysis reveals that, while the structure of place attachment is consistent across both fa-mily and non-family businesses, its impact on performance varies. The CEO’s place attachment is positively associated with economic, employee and environmental performance in non-family bu-sinesses but shows no significant relationship in family ones. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: By integrating the construct of place attachment into the business domain, this study offers a novel framework for understanding how CEOs’ socioemotional connections to a given place shape firm-level out-comes, advancing the context-sensitive approach of management theory. This contextualization enriches family business literature by emphasizing place as a critical, yet overlooked, element of organizational behavior and strategic decision-making.