Family business succession: a female perspective

Objectives – This paper analyses daughters’ position in family businesses and reasons beyond those, including daughters’ personal preferences and motivations. The purpose of the paper, in particular, is to understand how daughters’ desires and expectations contribute to determining the role they actually play in the family and if this role is consistent with their ambitions. Prior work – Several authors have analysed the influence of gender on family business succession but knowledge on this subject is still incomplete. Three main research areas can be identified: 1) conditions that facilitate (or hinder) daughters’ ability to take the leadership in family businesses; 2) daughters’ motivation, ambition and reason why they choose (or not) to join the family business and to realize a career from within; 3) different roles that daughters may assume within the family business. Approach – A multiple case study has been carried out to gather data through in-depth, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. Case analysis made it possible to identify four daughters’ profiles, characterized by different combination between daughters’ expectations and their actual roles in their family business. Results – A taxonomy of daughters’ profiles is presented. They are characterized by different combinations of alignment/misalignment between daughters’ expectations and organizational positions actually held in their family business. Implications – Results from this research can help family business owners to encourage daughters’ involvement in family firms. Furthermore, a greater awareness of father-daughter, or brother-sister, dynamics could help business owners to better plan the younger generation’s career, helping sons and daughters to use their potential and increase women’s value. Moreover, this study defines a framework that can guide practitioners and advisors in analysing family firms involved in a succession process. Originality/value – Data from this investigation contributes creating a systematic framework for analysing daughters’ roles in family business succession. Further analysis should be carried out to understand what factors contribute to causing alignment or misalignment between daughters’ expectations and the roles they actually play within their family business.