Spotlights and shadows: Preliminary findings about the experiences of women in family business leadership roles

Abstract

In an earlier study (Moores & Barrett 2002) we found successful CEOs had learned leadership of family controlled businesses (FCBs) in a series of distinct learning phases. Because that study's sample did not include many women, our present study focuses on women in FCBs to better understand how they exercise leadership and entrepreneurship in the family firm context. Case study analysis of an international sample of women FCB leaders, using frameworks which avoid essentialist assumptions about women's and men's approach to leadership, suggests there are some characteristic ways women leaders learn FCB leadership and entrepreneurship roles. We have tentatively labelled them stumbling into the spotlight, building your own stage, directing the spotlight elsewhere, and coping with shadows. Some interviewees had failed to attain leadership; we labelled their journey becoming invisible. This paper uses Eisenhardt's (1989) framework to elaborate on the stumbling into the spotlight and coping with shadows journeys and what can be learned from them.

The current state of female leadership in the United Arab Emirates

“…In the UAE, Mostafa (2005), using the "multidimensional aversion to women who work scale," found that men held less positive attitudes to women managers than did females (p. 524). It is important to note, however, that there is a "growing conviction in the research community that there are more useful and valid research tasks than trying to identify inherently male or female approaches to leadership (Barrett & Moores, 2009).…”

Women in management: Are family firms somehow special?

“…In recent years, a formalization of the role of women in the company is taking place. The proportion of female managers in family businesses is increasing (Barrett & Moores, 2009;Humphreys, 2013) and 33% of family businesses are estimated to be run by women in the United States (Sonfield & Lussier, 2012). The interplay between the private and professional contexts in family businesses can reduce the gender gap and enable women to take further leadership roles when they become familiar with the business (Bjursell & Bäckvall, 2011).…”

Gender theory and the family business

“…They use stories about women entering the family business and offer a new perspective on entrepreneurial identity as a narrative construction. This field of study is relevant because others have also concluded that increasing numbers of women are entering family businesses and taking up leadership positions (Barrett & Moores, 2009;Harveston et al, 1997). The move from the family context to the business context has an impact on the individual woman´s identity process (Bjursell & Melin, 2011).…”