Daughters´ journey to father´s role in family business in China: Patterns and stages

Father-daughter succession remains rare in family business as evidenced by limited number of female leaders in business. Existing research on this topic is exclusively based on western countries. With the rise of family firms in China in the late 1970s, many founders found themselves approaching retirement age and need to consider succession issue. The strong desire of keeping business within a family in Chinese society implies children are preferred successors. Daughters have been increasingly considered and trained as the successors for family business in China. This paper explores father-daughter succession in family firms based on interviews of four female successors in China. The four cases present distinctive stages of succession and reveal deep influence of Confucianism in various aspects of father-daughter succession as well as challenges faced female successors in male dominant industries.