Factors Affecting Women’s Intention to Lead Family Businesses in Mexico

Comments

Response

1.      abstract references "South America" and "Mexico," though article focuses explicitly on Mexico and acknowledges results cannot be extrapolated to other regions because of culturally-specific factors

We are grateful to the referee for this comment. In line 16 we added ‘specifically’ to explain that we are not trying to generalise our results to South America, but rather we are pointing to the uniqueness of the study which lies in the fact that only a few studies investigating the factors impeding women’s leadership in family firms have been conducted in this wider region (naturally including Mexico).

2.      introduction discusses women's position on boards as context for women's roles in family businesses; these are distinct issues and governing models and should probably be separated. The discussion of board composition does not seem relevant.

Again, this is a justified comment and helps improve our paper. We have acted upon it by adding and clarifying the first paragraph of the Introduction, which now highlights the importance of women’s leadership in family businesses in Mexico (lines 21-31): “The recognition of women in the leadership of family firms is increasing and has been evidenced by the raising proportion of female managers in family businesses (Barret and Moores; Humphreys, 2013). It is estimated that women run 33 percent of family businesses in the United States (Sonfield and Lussier, 2012). In Latin America, 90 percent of all enterprises are family owned or controlled (Borkowski, 2001; Carraher, 2005; Trevinyo-Rodríguez, 2009, 2010), with many being led by women. In fact, the study by the Economist (2004) estimates that up to 95 percent of business in Mexico are family owned and led, providing a foundation of the country’s economy. This creates a large scope for leadership opportunities available to female family members. However, there is a considerable number of factors impeding women in Mexico to reach the leading roles in the family firms”.

3.      the literature review could be flipped in logic, to begin with sexism, followed by invisibility and glass ceiling. Sections within the literature review conflate sexism (lines 82-88, 97-102, 120-122) with other categories. By blending these sections and discussing the ways in which overt and covert sexism drive glass ceillings and invisibility would be more effective from a reader perspective.

This is a great advice and we have accounted for it in Section 2 in a number of ways, including:

Lines 78-80: “Specifically, we start our discussion with sexism since various aspects of this barrier are driving forces behind invisibility and glass ceiling”.

Line 88:  “… and often drives invisibility and glass ceiling”.

Lines 197-198:  “Given the review of factors affecting women’s leadership in family firms, we have grouped them according to the barrier they represent”

4.      Grammatical issues lines 207-214; awkward phrasing of RQs. "sexism affect a woman's desire to lead" rather than "desirability." Likewise, should be "acceptance" rather than "acceptability."

We are grateful for highlighting these mistakes. They have been addressed accordingly and ‘the barriers of’ has been added to further enhance the clarity of our Research Questions. The word ‘acceptability’ has been changed to ‘acceptance also in Figure 1.

5.      Did the authors consider including family businesses where women were not interested in, or elevated to, leadership positions as a contrast? This could expand the 'n' of analysis and provide a more robust assessment of factors contributing to leadership.

This is a justified comment, and we acknowledge that many women working for family businesses in Mexico may not aspire to reach the leadership level for various reasons. Nonetheless, as we focused solely on the obstacles to reach the leadership positions, only the participants interested in the progression and already partially leading have been selected for the interviews. We have included this explanation in the article in Section 4.1, lines 256-263:

 “As our focus is to explore factors that impede women’s raise to a leadership position in a family firm, we purposefully selected only participants who have already held a position of considerable responsibility and could share retrospectively their experience of obstacles in their journey of progression within their family firm. We acknowledge that it would be also interested to consider the opinions of women who do not aspire to lead the family business; however, this investigation is beyond the scope of the present study, where the focus is on obstacles to women’s leadership”.

6.      Given the findings listed in lines 437-443, have the authors considered the expansive literature on what is referred to as "the second shift"? The problem they are describing falls within the scope of this well-established body of research on impediments to women's leadership, which is not a function of invisibility (rather sexism).  See, The Second Shift by Hochchild and Machung (2012). 

We are grateful for reminding us of the alternative explanation to the findings. We have briefly acknowledged it in Section 5.1, lines 331-332:  “often working the ‘second shift’ at home (Hochchild and Machung (2012)”.

and in Section 6, lines 469-474, as follows:

“There are two possible explanations for why this is occurring. First, the lack of recognition of the childcare obligations may indicate the women’s invisibility suggesting that this barrier remains an impediment to the women’s leadership. Second, this outcome might be associated with the idea of ‘second shift’ introduced by Hochschild and Machung (2012) exposing the dual career-household issues induced through sexism”.

7.      Given the findings listed in lines 461-465, have the authors considered how the personal dynamics of family businesses (conflation of work relationships and personal relationships, both at home and in the professional space) interact with leadership dynamics? This is a unique factor in the context of family businesses that would position it as an important environment for studying the issues raised in the paper, further justifying the significance of their work. 

The referee raises an important point and again we are grateful for highlighting the aspect of personal dynamics. We believe we have included the relevant discussion on that point, although this may seem superficial, in Section 5, specifically Section 5.1, lines 311-312 (Recognition); lines 327-332 (Childcare an Flexible working hours); Section 5.2, lines 334-335; lines 373-378 (Family support); and in Section 5.3, lines 441-457 (Family-firm conflict).  We could not engage with more profound analysis of this aspect as it would take the reader’s attention away from other factors/impediments discussed in the article and would lead to an imbalanced analysis.

Comment

Response

1.      The rationale, as well as the overall design of the study is clearly articulated. The research method is also described with enough details. While the conclusions are well expressed enough at the end of the paper, the content explanations can be further enhanced.

We are grateful for this comment and we have addressed it by invoking various clarifications/changes, the most important ones are as follows:

-In the Introduction Section:

(lines 21-31): We added the following text

“The recognition of women in the leadership of family firms is increasing and has been evidenced by the raising proportion of female managers in family businesses (Barret and Moores; Humphreys, 2013). It is estimated that women run 33 percent of family businesses in the United States (Sonfield and Lussier, 2012). In Latin America, 90 percent of all enterprises are family owned or controlled (Borkowski, 2001; Carraher, 2005; Trevinyo-Rodríguez, 2009, 2010), with many being led by women. In fact, the study by the Economist (2004) estimates that up to 95 percent of business in Mexico are family owned and led, providing a foundation of the country’s economy. This creates a large scope for leadership opportunities available to female family members. However, there is a considerable number of factors impeding women in Mexico to reach the leading roles in the family firms”.

- In Section 5, Discussion of Results.

 Section 5.1, lines 331-332:  “often working the ‘second shift’ at home (Hochchild and Machung (2012)”.

and in Section 6, lines 469-474, as follows:

“There are two possible explanations for why this is occurring. First, the lack of recognition of the childcare obligations may indicate the women’s invisibility suggesting that this barrier remains an impediment to the women’s leadership. Second, this outcome might be associated with the idea of ‘second shift’ introduced by Hochschild and Machung (2012) exposing the dual career-household issues induced through sexism”.

-In the final section of Conclusions:

“The results concerning remuneration and recognition do not extend to flexible working hours, where the women reported more demands imposed on them because of their leading role in the family business. This finding does not support numerous observations, according to which the women working for their family firms benefit from additional security, flexibility and support. There are two possible explanations for why this is occurring. First, the lack of recognition of the childcare obligations may indicate the women’s invisibility suggesting that this barrier remains an impediment to the women’s leadership. Second, this outcome might be associated with the idea of ‘second shift’ introduced by Hochschild and Machung (2012) exposing the dual career-household issues induced through sexism”.

2.      The case studies may be more clearly described and the qualitative feedback from interviewees should be presented more for consideration.

Because of inadequate data of this kind being noted in the content of the paper, readers do not feel fully engaged with the content of the study.

Thank you for this comment.

Following more specific comments from Rev#1 and Rev#3, we have enhanced the article making the argument more coherent both on the conceptual and empirical part.

We respect the view of the referees regarding the number of interviewees but think that the data extracted from 8 in depth interviews is adequate and sufficient to draw some useful conclusions. We have made the findings more visible and hopefully the readers will engage with the message.

That said, we are conscious that this is a relative small sample, and consequently the applications are bounded. As we explained in the last paragraph of our conclusion:

“Finally, we are aware that due to the size of our sample, our results might not be generalizable. We also acknowledge that certain socio-economic and cultural aspects may limit the transferability of our results to countries and cultural settings that differ from Mexico. Thus, future research could address these limitations by investigating the barriers to leadership in other geographical, cultural, social, economic, political or geographical contexts to either confirm or refute the robustness of our finding. It would also be interesting to see whether the present results can be replicated for larger sample size in Mexico and in other geographical locations.”

Comment

Response

I congratulate the authors for the article presented for review.

Many thanks for the referees’ kind words.

Here are my suggestions for improvement:

1. The objective should be changed to something more concrete, since the term “revisit the debate” is vague. It will be preferable to use a term such as "determining the prevalence of ..." or "identifying ...";

This comment has been addressed and lines 4-5 of the abstract has been changed as follows:

“The purpose of this study is to establish the prevalence of the barriers to women’s leadership in the family business in the context of invisibility, glass ceiling, and sexism”.

2. Keywords: I don't understand the word “medico”. Do you mean to say "Mexico"? I suggest the inclusion of the terms: “invisibility”, “glass ceiling”, and “sexism”.

We are grateful for pointing out this typo to us and we have corrected it accordingly. While we find the inclusion of the explicit barriers into the list of key words recommendable, we are constrained by the number of key words allowed.

3. Bibliographic references must be more recent. Although main works should be mentioned, in general, authors should make efforts to update the citations;

Thank you for this comment

We have strengthen our argument discussing recent and related articles. In  total 12 new references have been added (highlighted in yellow in the text) These are:

1.       Arzubiaga, U., Iturralde, T., Maseda, A., and Kotlar, J. (2018). Entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance in family SMEs: the moderating effects of family, women, and strategic involvement in the board of directors. Int Entrep Manag J, 14, pp. 217–244.

2.       Barrett, M. and Moores, K. (2009). Spotlights and shadows: Preliminary findings about the experiences of women in family business leadership roles. Journal of Management & Organization, 15(3), pp. 363–377.

3.       Borkowski, M. (2001). Options for Buying and Selling a Family Business. Canadian Plastics, 59(6), pp. 26–28.

4.       Carraher, S.M. (2005). An Examination of Entrepreneurial Orientation: A Validation Study in 68 Countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. International Journal of Family Business, 2(1), pp. 95–100.

5.       Hochschild, A., and Machung A. (2012). The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home. Penguin Books.

6.       Humphreys, M. M. C. (2013). Daughter succession: A predominance of human issues. Journal of Family Business Management, 3(1), pp. 24–44.

7.       Nelson, T. and Constantinidis C. (2017). Sex and Gender in Family Business Succession Research: A Review and Forward Agenda From a Social Construction Perspective. Family Business Review, 30(3), pp. 219–241.

8.       San Martín-Reyna, J. M., and Durán-Encalada, J. A. (2017). Radiografía de la empresa familiar en México. Universidad de las Americas.

9.       Sonfield, M. C., and Lussier, R. N. (2012). Gender in family business management: A multinational analysis. Journal of Family Business Management, 2(2), pp. 110–129.

10.    The Economist (2004), Business in Mexico: Still keeping it in the family, available at: https://www.economist.com/business/2004/03/18/still-keeping-it-in-the-family (accessed June 2021)

11.    Trevinyo-Rodríguez, R.N. (2009). From a Family-Owned to a Family-Controlled Business. Journal of Management History, 15(3), pp. 284–298. 

12.    Trevinyo-Rodríguez, R.N. 2010. Empresa Familiar: Visión Latinoamericana, Pearson Education México.

4. It is necessary to justify why it is relevant to focus on the selected theme. In this case, I recommend following the following structure in the introduction: (1) first, contextualize, in general, the problem under study; (2) second, to identify and justify the gap found in the literature and which is intended to be addressed in this article; (3) third, to establish the objective of this research; (4) fourth, identify the main contributions of this study; and (5) fifth, explain the structure of the article. The authors already present some of these points in the article, so only a specific improvement is required.

Many thanks for this but you have noticed, we have adhered to a sound structure, which follows the first four sections you suggested.

The fifth you suggests (“explain the structure of the article”) puzzles us because explanation of the structure of the paper is clearly spelled out at the end of the introduction section (lines 65-73).

5. What is the relevance of focusing on Mexican context? Greater contextualization is needed to justify this study in this specific context.

This is an important comment and has been addressed by highlighting the importance of the Mexican context in lines:

(26-31): “In fact, the study by the Economist (2004) estimates that up to 95 percent of business in Mexico are family owned and led, providing a foundation of the country’s economy. This creates a large scope for leadership opportunities available to female family members. However, there is a considerable number of factors impeding women in Mexico to reach the leading roles in the family firms”.

(48-52): “Mexico is an interesting country to undertake this work because, on the one hand, there are strong cultural traditions that would make harder for women to reach leadership position in the family business context. However, on the other hand, being an emerging economy with most businesses being family-led, many of those beliefs and values are being challenged and questioned”.

6. In the methodology, it is important to present the most relevant characteristics of these family businesses under study.

We are grateful for this comment, which we have addressed in Section 4.1 by providing additional information regarding the sample. This can be found in lines 252-259:

“As our focus is to explore factors that impede women’s raise to a leadership position in a family firm, we purposefully selected only participants who have already held a position of considerable responsibility and could share retrospectively their experience of obstacles in their journey of progression within their family firm. We acknowledge that it would be also interested to consider the opinions of women who do not aspire to lead the family business; however, this investigation is beyond the scope of the present study, where the focus is on obstacles to women’s leadership”.

7. Authors should emphasize the limitations of the study, its contributions to theory and practice. The study is very pertinent, but it confines itself to a specific contextual reality, so it would be very interesting that the authors could point out the clues for future investigations, for new studies, that could confirm or refute these results, in other geographical, cultural, social, economic, political or demographic contexts.

Good luck.

We are grateful for this advice and we have addressed it including additional information in the conclusion, whilst deleting the final sentence.

Lines 509-513: “Thus, future research could address these limitations by investigating the barriers to leadership in other geographical, cultural, social, economic, political or geographical contexts to either confirm or refute the robustness of our finding. It would also be interesting to see whether the present results can be replicated for larger sample size in Mexico and in other geographical locations”.