Family-owned businesses in India function on basic cultural and value systems that percolate down from the top management to the workers through the middle management. The construction of the benevolent father figure is central to the functioning of this cultural system. This paper explores the impact of this figure in the context of employee association and satisfaction levels. Part of a larger and on-going study, the paper showcases data and findings from two of the organisations studied. In these industries, organisation A and B share the same location, which is the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, but different management