Gender Role Congruity in Family Businesses of India

Abstract

Family businesses are considered to be paradoxical units, where the decisions are generally taken by the leader within the family business. Women seeking positions in family businesses often encounter considerable challenges in obtaining and retaining their roles. Especially, role congruity was reported as a significant barrier to the ability of women to successfully acquire and manage their positions and roles within the organizations. Role congruity can be understood in terms of the involved perceptions of how an individual's gender role fits or achieves congruity with other roles held by the individual. In most instances, leadership and female gender roles did not achieve a high degree of congruity thus creating barriers for women to successfully seek and retain leadership positions irrespective of the nature of the organization.The paper tries to look at qualities under behaviour provision and also understand the moderating role of gender which affects the family business roles.