The dearth of daughter successors in family businesses: Gendered norms, blindness to possibility, and invisibility

•We present a model describing daughters’ paths to succession in family businesses in the U.S., based on a study of supply and demand factors that influence daughter succession.•We examine contextual factors that influence the selection and self-selection of successors in family businesses, using gender theory combined with the theory of planned behavior, a decision model.•Gender norms, which are automatically activated, blind daughters to possibilities of succession.•Gender norms make daughters invisible to others as successors.•Gender norms may be overcome when a critical event occurs followed by mentoring.

Statistics reveal a dearth of daughters among successors of family business owners. In one of very few empirical studies on the subject of daughters who do not follow in the footsteps of their entrepreneurial fathers, we examined factors that may contribute to daughters’ self-assessments of succession. Findings reveal that daughters’ own blindness to the possibility of succession, often resulting from automatically activated gender norms, impedes their ascendancy. Interviews with daughters who did not pursue executive positions with decision making responsibilities in their family firms, as well as both sons and daughters who did, indicate that daughters may not deliberately consider succession until a critical event motivates them to do so. Additionally, parental support and mentoring for leadership are seen to facilitate daughter succession.