Succession in Chinese family-SMEs: a gendered analysis of successor learning and development

ABSTRACT

Due to characteristics such as size, financial constraints and entrepreneurial origins, HRD and learning in SMEs is generally regarded as informal in nature. How SME employees, including those in family SMEs, learn new knowledge and skills is receiving increasing attention. This paper studies learning approaches in Chinese family-SMEs during the succession process. We suggest that founder/owners’ and family-members’ perceptions of gender influence the nature of successors’ learning and firm leadership opportunities by identifying the masculinization/feminization of different learning modes. We argue that many SMEs’ informal nature and owner characteristics may exacerbate negative gendered stereotypes and norms, ultimately affecting women’s leadership learning and legitimacy. The study identifies disruptions to the traditional gendered order as it emerges from women successors’ role and learning in SMEs. This offers a new lens to understand why some family-SMEs might succeed and/or fail in the second generation.

KEYWORDS:

• Family business
• learning and development
• HRD
• gender
• succession

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We define a family-SMEs as “A business governed and/or managed with the intention to shape and pursue the vision of the business held by a dominant coalition controlled by members of the same family or a small number of families in a manner that is potentially sustainable across generations of the family or families “(Chua, Chrisman, and Sharma, 1999, p. 25).

2. We define succession as the ‘the actions and events that lead to the transition of leadership from one family member to another in family firms’ (Sharma, Chrisman, Pablo and Chau, 2001, p.21).