Do dreams always come true? Daughters’ expectations and experience in family business succession

Some authors have analysed the influence of gender on family business succession but knowledge on this subject is still incomplete. Contributions to this topic have focused on three main research areas: 1) conditions that facilitate (or hinder) daughters’ ability to take on the leadership in family businesses; 2) daughters’ motivations, ambitions and reasons why they choose (or not) to join the family business and to realise a career from within; 3) different roles that daughters may assume within the family business. These investigations have allowed a significant, but not yet exhaustive, knowledge of the subject (Jimenez 2009; Al-Dajani et al., 2014). In particular, the link between daughters’ goals and effective role played in their family businesses was not effectively analysed. Consequently, it’s unclear whether the daughters’ roles in their family businesses is the result of a free or imposed choice. In this chapter, authors analyse daughters’ position in family businesses and reasons beyond those, including daughters’ personal preferences and motivations. The purpose of the chapter is to understand how daughters’ desires and expectations contribute to determining the role they actually play in their family business and if their roles are consistent with their ambitions. 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 a typology of four daughters’ profiles, characterised by a different combination between daughters’ expectations and their actual roles in their family business.