Gender and culture in family business: A ten-nation study

The current study focused on the role played by culture and gender differences in family business: to what extent are family businesses different across cultures, to what extent are family businesses owned by women different from family businesses owned by men and is there a culture by gender interaction? These questions were examined using data collected as part of the adult population surveys of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) in 10 countries including four Anglo-Saxon countries (US, UK, Australia, New Zealand), three European countries (Spain, Sweden, Hungary), one Latin American country (Brazil), one East Asian country (Singapore) and one Mediterranean country (Israel). Results showed consistently big cross-cultural differences between the owners of family businesses in the ten countries and far smaller and less consistent differences between male and female owners of family businesses. These findings offer a strong support for social theories of gender and a much weaker support for evolutionary theory.