Discussions about how best to support the growth of women’s participation in enterprises have been largely conflated with much wider debates about the role of women in society and in the economy (Carter, Mwaura, Ram, Trehan, 2015). Women have been economically active since 11th century. At that time, they played roles such as agents who sold textiles for merchants or even brokers who dealt in books (Goitein, 1967). However, especially in the past, women’s professional capabilities and competencies were mostly ignored, both in family firms, and in non-family business. Due to the “invisibility” of women, studies on gender in family business and the role of women are quite recent (Cole, 1997; Harveston, Davis & Lyden, 1997). In the 1980s, articles about women in family firms focused mostly on barriers and resistance and compared female accomplishments to those of businessmen in the past. Contrary to stereotypes, family businesses are leading the way of opportunity for women in many ways. Today’s women are more comfortable discussing their wealth openly with their families and advisers (Almallah, Schwartz, 2008). However, notwithstanding a lot of achievements, many issues remain open, if we consider recent literature on women roles in family and nonfamily firms. According to a research of Sánchez Sellero and Sánchez-Sellero (2013), conducted in Spain, the probability of men to work for a family firm is the same to all family size, whereas this probability for women is lower if the family size gests bigger. Women are less likely to have linear careers, they don’t have mentors, even in small firms. […]
Key-Words: imprenditorialità e family business
Figure 1- Paper distribution per year
Figure 3- Topics distribution among the selected publications
Figure 4- New research directions.
Table 2- Topics distribution among the selected publications
