Understanding women’s entrepreneurial leadership in the context of families in business

Discua Cruz, Allan Fernando and Hamilton, Eleanor and Jack, Sarah Louise (2019) Understanding women’s entrepreneurial leadership in the context of families in business. In: Women, Business and Leadership : Gender and Organisations. New Horizons in Management . Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 140-157. ISBN 9781786432704

Abstract

Women entrepreneurs are important in the foundation, development, and continuity of any family business. This chapter explores entrepreneurial leadership by women in the context of family business in a developing Latin American country. The concept of entrepreneurial leadership challenges traditional approaches to research in both entrepreneurship and family business. Both fields have been critiqued for a focus on individualistic or gender-neutral perspectives, and furthermore with limited exploration outside developed economies. To address this challenge, this chapter presents an illustration of the entrepreneurial leadership of women in Honduras, a Latin American country where their involvement has been largely hidden or invisible in research to date. Findings reveal that a close examination of narratives of families in business can challenge socially embedded gendered assumptions of entrepreneurial leadership by women in developing economies.