Abstract
Normative assumptions about the family imply that it includes a woman as well as a man. Books about family business are usually based on this assumption, so do we really need a book about women only? After reading this book, I think you will answer ‘yes’ to this question. In the literature, family business have been described as a male territory with women assuming invisible and subordinate roles. The rule of primogeniture, to select the eldest son as the future leader of the business, is a big obstacle for women in family businesses. At the same time, we see more women entering this traditional arena. Since women in family businesses are assuming leadership roles at a high rate, Barrett and Moores saw a need to complement their previous studies, presented in Learning Family Business: Paradoxes and Pathways (2002), as they realized that the majority in the foregoing study were male CEOs. In this new book, Barrett and Moores elaborate on the dynamics of women’s leadership and entrepreneurship in a context that is often characterized as being conventional and conservative. Based on a broad definition of entrepreneurship, the authors use 13 stories to illustrate four ways to become a leader in a family business. Here I will discuss three main themes in the book: the drama metaphor, learning and leadership and roles in family business.
In the title of the book, we find the concepts role and stage, indicating a drama metaphor. The authors apply this metaphor to link the different aspects and chapters:
Most of our participants attempted to construct a ‘stage’ or firm context that suited their approach to leadership. This in turn prompted us to use the metaphor of theatre to understand and describe our participants’ experiences. (p. 49)
This metaphor sheds light on the participants’ shared experience that leadership involved moving from obscurity to a central position of strong visibility in the family business. Furthermore, the metaphor was useful to describe the variety of leadership roles in which these women actively engaged. The drama metaphor is mainly used in a stylistic manner, and not discussed as such in this book. This is in line with the authors’ intention and makes the text entertaining to read at the same time as it adds richness to the text. However, it would have been interesting with a discussion about the use of metaphors, how this influences what we see and what we do not see. There is potential in the use of metaphors that is neither discussed nor developed in this book.
The authors use three frameworks to emphasize the social aspects of learning in combination with changes in the roles and relationships that the participants face. In order to approach leadership as constructed within the frameworks of social learning, family business is compared to communities of practice. Research on the leadership process can bring valuable insights into the family business dynamics:
[T]o avoid stereotypes in the study of entrepreneurship, this book closely examines what women in family business do, rather than simply what they are. Our three analytical frameworks … are helpful in this respect because they focus on problems and activities. (p. 22)
The process of becoming a leader and moving through the four phases of learning family business is a suitable framework. Even though career paths in family businesses can be windy roads compared to step-wise careers, there are still development stages that need to be mastered at one point or another. The analysis of in-depth real-life scenarios from a learning perspective is one of the highlights of this book. When it comes to the theoretical frameworks on learning, the authors’ emphasis is on the combination and application of existing theories to understand the empirical material.
In the 1990s, authors wrote about women’s roles and in particular the invisibility of women in family businesses. Apart from being described as invisible, women have been portrayed as taking roles necessary for the survival of the firm or choosing roles in the family business as a career alternative. However, these roles do not include women who found their own firm. Thus, Barrett and Moores emphasize the necessity to include an additional role: the entrepreneur. In their analysis, they find four typical ways that women become leaders: (1) stumbling into the spotlight; (2) building your own stage; (3) directing the spotlight elsewhere; and (4) coping with shadows. The first and the third ways are in line with previous descriptions of women in family business as unwilling or invisible actors. However, Barrett and Moores turn the idea of invisibility into a strategic choice rather than a passive outcome: they describe women working within the existing gender structures and actively putting someone else in the spotlight to avoid resistance. ‘Building your own stage’ is about women entrepreneurs, often with a family business background, who found their own business that later on becomes a family business. In the last category, ‘coping with shadows’, the authors include portraits of struggling entrepreneurs (in contrast with success stories only). To shift the focus to women as entrepreneurs, that is, founders of family businesses, is an important contribution of this book. This challenges the assumption of the patriarch that is frequent in the family business as well as the entrepreneurship literature, and may help us when setting up new research ventures in the future by broadening our notion of what and who to study.
As mentioned previously, this book gives a thorough analysis of 13 stories that represent different stages of learning. The diversity in the cases bring forward ideas for future research as well as inspiration for practitioners. The focus of the book is on social learning theories connected to leadership roles. A contribution to the research society is that the book adds to the scarse body of literature on women in family business, especially on women entrepreneurs in family business. In this respect, the book can be seen as a bridge between the related fields of entrepreneurship and family business. We still have a lot to learn by taking a closer look at women’ s entrepreneurship in these male-oriented fields. Barrett and Moores do so by taking a look at the messy and highly context-specific everyday performances. In the final chapter, a number of propositions based on empirical study are presented for testing on larger samples.
A contribution to practice is made by the presentation of various leadership roles for women in family business. Alternative ways to approach and engage in leadership are presented, and this can provide role models for young people interested in taking over a family business. Acknowledging alternative role interpretations, such as the ones made by Barrett and Moore, can shift the leader role away from the heroic entrepreneur towards a unisex character whose action is dependent on setting and co-actors. An updated version of the leader to fit 21st-century challenges will vouch for a larger number of daughters moving from invisibility into the leading role in the years to come.