Succession and gender dynamics in family firms – A systematic literature review and future research agenda

Abstract

The influences of gender relations and gender dynamics within family firm succession have been widely studied in recent decades. However, there have been few attempts to synthesise existing results in the field. Thus, this article aims to provide a systematic literature review focusing exclusively on the gendered issues related to family firm succession processes. A comprehensive analysis of 57 journal articles extracted from the Scopus database was conducted. As a result, (1) the topics of gendered influences on daughter’s succession in family firms, (2) gender and succession processes in family firms, and (3) gender and intra-family relationships in family firm succession are identified as the central areas. Based on these findings, a future research agenda is outlined. The paper contributes to the field of family firm research by highlighting the research trends in the gendered analysis of family firm succession, and by pointing out under-researched areas that merit further exploration.