Favouritism has been the world phenomenon for a very long time and it is widely practice by leaders especially in family-owned businesses. The damaging effects of favouritism become magnified when leader prefers some of employees more than the rest. Many scholars has been debated on the effects of favouritism towards employees’ performance and claimed that it open doors for nepotism and cronyism in the organization. This study aims to investigate the relationship between favouritism on gender, favouritism on social ties and job performance of employees working at family-owned business in Shah Alam. Besides, the autocratic and democratic leadership style were used as mediator to the relationship between favouritism on gender and social ties and job performance. Moreover, questionnaire has been used for the data collection and involves total of 350 respondents who work under family-owned business organization within Shah Alam area. The findings of this study revealed the level of job performance with the existence of favouritism on gender and social ties is moderate. There is also negative relationship between favouritism on gender and social ties with job performance and democratic leadership styles was significantly mediates between favouritism on social ties and job performance supported by empirical evidence of past studies.
