Gender and Succession Intentions in Family Firms: The Mediating Role of Affective Commitment

Integrating arguments from social identity theory with the literature on commitment, we explorewhether prior family business exposure influences intra-family succession intentions and to whatextent affective commitment mediates this relationship. We then go a step further to see if the sexof the self-employed parent amplifies these relationships. Using data from the 2013 GlobalUniversity Entrepreneurial Spirit Students Survey (GUESSS) of 18,119 students, our findingssuggest that affective commitment partially mediates the relationship between prior familybusiness exposure and succession intentions. In addition, having self-employed parents amplifiesthe positive relationship between family business exposure and affective commitment fordaughters only.