Like Father Like Son: How Perceived Parental Mentoring Strategies Shape Successors' Entrepreneurial Identity in Chinese Family Businesses

Abstract Parental mentoring plays a pivotal role in fostering intrafamily succession and entrepreneurial endeavors. Taking an identity-based perspective, we conducted an exploratory multiple case study involving nine Chinese family firms to investigate how successors perceive the influence of mentoring from their entrepreneurial parents on the development of their entrepreneurial identities. Our findings reveal that successors' entrepreneurial identity changes from ambiguous to clarified through four perceived parental mentoring strategies, namely laying foundations, painting bright futures, relating experiences, and leading by examples. In particular, we show how the unique Chinese family dynamics resulted in some paradoxical tensions influencing the successors' entrepreneurial identity. By taking a holistic view, we conceptualize parental mentoring as a crucial nurturing strategy for successors and connect it to the process of successor identity transformation. This research sheds light on the nexus of entrepreneurial identity, family dynamics, and the Chinese cultural context within the realm of family business research and practice.