Women entrepreneurs and their leadership in family business: insights from digital workplace innovation

Purpose Digital Workplace Innovation (DWI) brings great merits to the family business, but how DWI supports women leadership and their work-life balance remains unclear, leaving a glaring knowledge gap. To fulfil the gap, the current article scrutinizes how DWI improves the work-life balance of women entrepreneurs, thereby facilitating their leadership development and business potential. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the Varied Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and cognate family business literature, this article develops four conceptual transformation mechanisms: confidence-building, opportunity-creation, knowledge-accumulation and perception-shifting. This paper is a conceptual viewpoint: no original empirical data were collected. The mechanisms are derived through systematic synthesis of existing scholarly literature, and all quantitative figures cited are drawn from prior studies and presented as illustrative indicators rather than original findings. Findings Women entrepreneurs adopting DWI may experience higher leadership self-efficacy, greater strategic participation and an increased likelihood of succession designation. To be precise, eight TAM components, five cognitive-instrumental processes and three social-influence processes jointly determine adoption patterns. Yet adopting DWI alone is insufficient, as supportive family business cultures remain essential to avoid technology paradoxes such as digital presenteeism, differential support and competence stereotyping. Practical implications This article extends TAM into family business contexts, conceptually illustrating how cognitive and social processes may interact with family-specific dynamics. This conceptual work also challenged the traditional assumption that leadership requires uninterrupted physical presence, offering actionable guidance for planning gender-inclusive succession policies Originality/value The current article offers a conceptual integration of existing literature by synthesizing a coherent pathway for women entrepreneurs in family businesses: DWI may improve work-life balance, which in turn supports leadership development. Rather than presenting original empirical evidence, the contribution lies in reframing and connecting established concepts; TAM, work-life balance and leadership development, within the under-explored context of family business succession.