Factors Affecting Women’s Intention to Lead Family Businesses in Mexico

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to establish the prevalence of barriers to women’s leadership in the family business in terms of invisibility, the glass ceiling effect, and sexism. We conduct eight semi-structured interviews with women holding leading managerial roles in family businesses in Mexico to identify the factors that impede/facilitate their involvement. We apply the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in order to determine how these factors support/constrain women in their roles. We find that some factors and circumstances are critical for women to achieve an important leadership role in the family business. These factors entail levels of education and experience, the extent to which women participate in strategic decision making and governance of the firm, as well as the support of the company’s founder and other family members for these women’s efficacy and self-esteem. These results challenge some of the extant findings in the literature, thus enriching the current perspectives on the leadership role of women in family firms. Moreover, this research is the first attempt to analyze impediments to women under the TPB perspective as well as one of the few studies conducted on the topic in Latin America, specifically in Mexico.

Succession Intention in Continuing Family Business in Indonesia during the Covid-19 Pandemic

“…In terms of control variables, we found that no variable significantly affects intention. This condition could stem from several reasons: We found that no significant differences between genders exist in terms of intention, which differs from previous studies about how gender relates to intention or future career choice (Duran-Encalada et al, 2021).…”

“…Application of TPB is also apparent in research that focuses on students as the main subject, for instance to understand the intention of students to create their business after graduation (Jena, 2020;Kusumawardani, 2020;Maresch et al, 2016). In the family business field, TPB also helps numerous researchers to understand various activities and intentions in families, such as explaining the intention of non-family members to work for family businesses (Arijs et al, 2018), female family members' intention to lead family businesses (Duran-Encalada et al, 2021), student entrepreneurship intention to strengthen the student family business (Wahjono et al, 2019), and also the intention of successors of family businesses in continuing the business (Carr & Sequeira, 2007;Sharma et al, 2003).…”

“…Gender and family business age are considered as our control variables. Research shows that, in certain situations, differences in the gender of successors of family businesses will present different situations regarding how a family business conducts its succession, especially in terms of cultural differences (Danes et al, 2005;Duran-Encalada et al, 2021;Nguyen et al, 2021). The age of the family business is also an important factor that presents significant differences in how well a family business completes its succession.…”