TY - JOUR

T1 - The bittersweet taste of family business

T2 - exploring the dynamics gendering and racializing entrepreneurship

AU - Pecis, Lara

AU - Ge, Bingbing

PY - 2025/1/29

Y1 - 2025/1/29

N2 - Family businesses are rich in stories and narratives and offer a fertile ground to explore ‘everyday life of family businesses’ that ‘may be difficult to access through other forms of empirical material’ (Nordqvist and Gartner 2020, 122–123). In this paper, we use Helen (Tse’s 2007) biography Sweet Mandarin to explore the complex dynamics of gender, race, and entrepreneurship in a transnational migrant family business. We regard this biography as Helen’s attempt to make sense of her family’s entrepreneurial past, to give voice to the women in her family and gain legitimacy in their entrepreneurial practices. Adopting an intersectionality lens attentive towards Chinese feminism and cultural contextualities, we contribute to current entrepreneurship feminist works that aim at unveiling structures reproducing gender and racial inequalities. Our theoretical approach reveals how Helen understood and legitimized Lily’s entrepreneurial journey as a Chinese woman entrepreneur through three mechanisms: i) silently appropriating traditional assumptions of entrepreneurship; ii) associating family legacy to the entrepreneurial future; iii) anchoring on a hopeful future to overcome sacrifices. Our research demonstrates the power of biography as a unique genre of literature that offers in-depth insights into the intersection of gender and racial dynamics in family business that would go otherwise unnoticed.

AB - Family businesses are rich in stories and narratives and offer a fertile ground to explore ‘everyday life of family businesses’ that ‘may be difficult to access through other forms of empirical material’ (Nordqvist and Gartner 2020, 122–123). In this paper, we use Helen (Tse’s 2007) biography Sweet Mandarin to explore the complex dynamics of gender, race, and entrepreneurship in a transnational migrant family business. We regard this biography as Helen’s attempt to make sense of her family’s entrepreneurial past, to give voice to the women in her family and gain legitimacy in their entrepreneurial practices. Adopting an intersectionality lens attentive towards Chinese feminism and cultural contextualities, we contribute to current entrepreneurship feminist works that aim at unveiling structures reproducing gender and racial inequalities. Our theoretical approach reveals how Helen understood and legitimized Lily’s entrepreneurial journey as a Chinese woman entrepreneur through three mechanisms: i) silently appropriating traditional assumptions of entrepreneurship; ii) associating family legacy to the entrepreneurial future; iii) anchoring on a hopeful future to overcome sacrifices. Our research demonstrates the power of biography as a unique genre of literature that offers in-depth insights into the intersection of gender and racial dynamics in family business that would go otherwise unnoticed.

U2 - 10.1080/08985626.2025.2459232

DO - 10.1080/08985626.2025.2459232

M3 - Journal article

JO - Entrepreneurship and Regional Development

JF - Entrepreneurship and Regional Development

SN - 0898-5626

ER -