Mothering legitimacy: The role of mothers in supporting daughters’ legitimacy as successors in an adverse societal context

The aim of this research is to investigate the role of mothers in supporting the legitimacy of their daughters as family business successors in societal contexts that are unfavorable to women. While, in general, daughters may still face greater challenges than sons in establishing legitimacy as business leaders and successors in family businesses, this struggle is further exacerbated in societal contexts where women do not have same economic rights as men and face legal barriers preventing their full economic participation. In these contexts, mothers may play a critical part in fostering their daughters’ legitimacy, supporting them in key leadership roles in the family business. Through qualitative methodology, and choosing Iran as our research context, we contribute to family business literature by illustrating the role of mothers in the legitimacy formation of daughters who have become family business successors. Based on our analysis, we propose a typology of mothers – as champion, unseen mentor, unsupportive or low influence – based on two aggregate dimensions relating to mothers’ influence in empowering daughters and mothers’ position in business or society. Our findings offer a nuanced understanding of the role of mothers in shaping their daughters’ legitimacy as leaders in family businesses, despite an unfavorable societal context.