Daughters taking over the family business: A gender analysis

This paper investigates the succession process as perceived and lived by daughters taking over the family business, with a gender perspective. Despite the rich literature on the succession process in family firms, few studies use a gender approach, though an increasing number of ventures are launched, taken over and managed by women, largely contributing to the economic development. In line with Dumas (1998), Barbot et al. (2005) and Vera & Dean (2005), our research aims at analyzing the succession process when daughters take over the family business. Our contribution is a gender analysis of the process, including the social phenomena of separation and hierarchy, with a focus on family composition. Using the model of Cadieux et al. (2000), we identify at each stage of the succession process, the key actors of the environment, we analyze their interactions and see how they open opportunities or rise difficulties in terms of legitimacy for daughters. The qualitative thematic analysis of eleven detailed case studies reveals a strong influence of the presence or absence of a son on the motivations and positioning of daughters, as well as on the construction of their legitimacy towards family and stakeholders. This study leads to several implications for public and private initiatives.