The challenge of passing down the business to a woman 

Is the fact of being a daughter an excluding factor when the business is handed on? In order to answer this question the researchers asked each of their respondents to take a position as regards the following question: ‘If there are one or more women amongst your descendents, do you think that one of them could, in the same way as one of your potential sons, one day take over the family business?’ The replies were pretty instructive: 40% of the respondents do not think that a daughter could take over the business in the same way as her brother, as against 60% who think the opposite. Amongst the latter are found more university graduates, young people and people who have spent less than 20 years in the family business. The authors note that ‘no significant difference has been observed in terms of the gender of the respondent. The opinions women and men have as regards the qualities their daughter should require to take over the family business are not fundamentally different.’ For all the respondents, when those who answered ‘no’ (40% of the sample) are asked for the reasons for their refusal, they take the following form: because their (grand) daughter does not have the ambition or the wish to hold a head of business post (17%°); because she is not prepared to hold a responsible position (8%); because the respondent does not have a daughter (6%); because the daughter has no interest in the activity of the business (4%) or because the respondent prefers to pass on the business to a male descendent (4%). ‘What is additionally striking is that these results enable us to debunk an old canard: the days of male primogeniture are over!’ emphasise the authors. ‘In effect our analyses indicate very clearly that this principle is no longer applied so automatically. Now only 4% rule out straightaway the possibility of leaving their business to a daughter, simply because she is not a boy!’

A passionate pathway but fraught with perils

The second part of the study, the qualitative analysis, looks into the cases of 9 family businesses in which one or more women have had, continue to have or are for whom it is foreseen that they will have an important position. The objective is to bring to light the obstacles they encounter, the pluses for the business, the advantages they draw from it as well as the motivations and forms of commitment these women have within the family business. Amongst the obstacles five categories stand out: the technical or ‘male’ character of certain professions; the balance between private/family life and professional life; the ‘mother-daughter’ relationship; the role traditionally attributed to women and stereotypes typical of the older generation. As far as the positive contributions, women say they have a different way of working: they have a great ability to listen, favour dialogue, accord greater importance to human aspects and are more rigorous. So many characteristics which we can already find in the literature. Concerning the advantages women can benefit from within family business, the respondents mentioned, in order of importance, greater flexibility, more responsibilities, power and autonomy, the shared values within the family business and its culture which give their work more meaning, and a certain legitimacy in the eyes of the workers. The reasons which motivate women to join the family business can be either positive (such as wanting a challenge, decision making power, autonomy, etc.) or negative (mainly the lack of better possibilities). Finally, concerning the involvement of women in the family business, they at times express an emotional attachment to the Symbolic which the family business represents, even if the most commonly cited form of commitment remains a ‘moral obligation’ to remain in the family business.

No matter the form their involvement takes, women who have taken the family business path will be faced with overcoming obstacles and challenges as women even if today, and this is more and more the case, they are considered as fully fledged entrepreneurs in their own right. In the same way as men.