Women and family firms: A state of the art literature review

This chapter reviews family firm (FF) studies in the business and management literature, aiming to explore and outline the state of the art with regards to women’s involvement in family businesses. Through a structured literature review focusing on the first 18 years of the new millennium, we identified and analysed 81 academic contributions in 2000–2017 (30 June) selected from the Scopus database. They were categorized based on year, authors’ and research location, academic journal of publication, methodological approach, and impact. Contributions were also analysed to identify the research focus/topic and define themes and issues addressed by different studies. Three main results emerged. First, dividing in half the analysis period and comparing 2000–2008 and 2009–2017, our study demonstrates that publications on women in family businesses more than tripled from the first to second phase, confirming scholars’ recent and growing interest in this topic. Second, while academics from North America dominated early research in the 1990s, since 2000 an increasing and relevant contribution has come from European researchers. Third, concerning the topics being addressed, four main themes were identified: women in FFs; succession; women-owned FFs and female entrepreneurship; and copreneurial ventures. The succession process from father to daughter remains a crucial theme, as does the analysis of various roles that women may assume within FFs. With few exceptions, women as predecessors is an overlooked area of research and succession from mother to offspring still receives little attention from scholars. With regards to all the themes, there is some novelty in relation to the geographical area (and consequently the cultural context) considered. Growing attention has also been devoted to female entrepreneurs and their FFs. Finally, a new theme—copreneurial ventures—emerged offering an important perspective on research to scholars.