Background: In family firms, succession is a critical and complex issue and may determine the business continuity. The succession process often involves a transfer of leadership from one generation to another. Despite acknowledging that gender may affect succession, there is little available research investigating the role of gender in family business succession.  Purpose: This study aims to understand and explore the role of gender in the succession process and the successor selection. Furthermore, the study aims to contribute to the extant research on gender within the succession process by providing an in-depth study on succession and gender issues in small to medium sized family firms.  Method: This study is guided by a relativist and constructivist research philosophy. The qualitative study utilises an interview study strategy and is influenced by an inductive approach. Empirical data was gathered through eight in-depth semi-structured interviews with both successors and predecessors. The empirical findings were analysed using a thematic analysis approach.  Conclusion: The findings show that gender shapes and influences perceptions and ideas regarding successors and succession. Thus, gender and gender stereotypes may affect successors assumptions of succession. The study finds that not just predecessors or the family affect perceptions of gender in succession. It is found that gender and gender stereotypes in the society and within the industries may also affect assumptions of succession and successor selection. Despite this, these stereotypes and perceptions do not seem to manifest in the choices or decisions one make regarding successor selection or the succession process in general.

Despite the growing number of women in the workforce, women still emerge as leaders in organizations less often than men. In order to understand this phenomenon, the current study explores the effects of self-monitoring, task characteristics, and priming on emergent male and female leaders. 160 high and low self-monitors performed one of two tasks (production or interpersonal task) in mixed sex groups of four, with a priming manipulation given to half of the groups. It was hypothesized and found that high self-monitors emerged more often as leaders than low self-monitors. The second hypothesis received partial support, as males emerged as leaders more often in a production task, but females did not emerge more often in an interpersonal task. Other hypotheses also received partial support, showing that high self-monitoring males emerged more often as leaders than females even during interpersonal tasks. Females did not emerge more often as leaders even if they were high self-monitors or if they were given a priming manipulation before completing a specified task. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed. / Master of Science

The purpose of the present study is to examine the pathways between gender and behavioral intention to engage in sexual HISB through application of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). It was found that feminine and masculine gender role stress differentially influence perceived behavioral control and behavioral attitudes, and that intention to engage in HISB was higher among women than men. Attitudes and PBC significantly predicted behavioral intention in this model. Further, women in the sample were more likely to search for sexual health information, with online sources being the most frequently reported resource. Additionally, past HISB was a significant predictor of sexual health literacy, eHealth literacy, and sexual health knowledge. These findings indicate that gender role stress may play a role in the maintenance of attitudes and perceived behavioral control about sexual health information seeking behaviors, and that HISB in general is higher among women.