Role Conflicts And Gender Dynamics In The Family Business
There is little academic research about how societally constructed gender norms and occupational and professional norms shape gender dynamics in a family business. This results in insufficient knowledge about potential conflicts or synergies individuals in a family firm face between their familial and professional roles. This project seeks to understand how role dynamics affect decision making, managerial styles, and allocation of power and positions in the family business, and how these impact and are impacted by family dynamics. We focus on causes and effects of professional versus familial roles and how these may be gendered within family firms. This research project explores the gap in the literature by investigating the lived experiences of women and men in family businesses. The research methodology is to conduct semi structured interviews of family business owners, managers, employees and family members. The purpose of this study is to increase our understanding of the role dynamics among family members in the family business, including the intersection of the public or business side and the private family side. We are interested in exploring how the experiences of women might be different from the experiences of men in their roles as both family members and as business executives, employees or owners. Our findings should illuminate how gender and professional roles intersect in family businesses.