Through her eyes: How daughter successors perceive their fathers in shaping their entrepreneurial identity

Abstract

This study investigates how daughter successors perceive that their entrepreneurial identities have been influenced by their fathers. Drawing on narrative identity and identity work theories and adopting an inductive and interpretive approach, we analysed interviews with 21 daughters. The findings reveal that their perceptions of their fathers can influence their entrepreneurial identities in multiple ways, concerning both why daughters become family business successors and how their entrepreneurial identities are shaped. To examine this variety of experiences, this study proposes a typology of four processes through which daughters’ entrepreneurial identities were formed (submission, self-empowerment, enhancement, and idealisation) and how they perceive their fathers’ role (commander, patriarch, mentor, and myth) in influencing these processes. This study contributes to the family business and entrepreneurial identity fields of research by showing that daughters’ perceptions of the role they ascribe to their fathers can be powerful mental representations that exert a great influence on their entrepreneurial identity.