It is suggested that more "role model" women entrepreneurs are needed. However, the gender gap in entrepreneurship remains. This study analyses the narratives of 51 role model women entrepreneurs to explore how they represent women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. We found that in accordance with the contemporary pressure for women to succeed and perform personally and professionally, the voice of the (super)woman doing "individualized entrepreneurial femininity" dominates. The role models narratives obscure race, class, and age barriers; reproduce prevailing gender stereotypes; normalize discriminatory workplace treatment and depict entrepreneurship as an appropriate alternative for working mothers. Implications for policy makers are presented.*In an ironic nod to the "superwoman" theme of this article, the birth of three babies and three respective maternity leaves took place over the course of this research project. Milo, Selim and Miguel, this publication is dedicated to you.Janice Byrne is Associate Professor of Human Resources and Organizational Behaviour in the Management

This article theorizes how CEOs ‘do gender’ in management succession and how this impacts their legitimacy as successor CEOs. Drawing on the analysis of seven incumbent-successor dyads in a family business setting, we document the multiple masculine (entrepreneurial, authoritarian and paternalistic) and feminine (relational, individualized and maternal) gender identities that both men and women CEO successors enact. We contribute to the CEO succession literature by revealing the different ways that CEOs can ‘do masculinity’ in their pursuit of legitimacy and also expose how CEO successors ‘do femininity’. In particular, we show how men and women CEOs enact relational femininity to garner stakeholders’ support as well as build alliances to temper change initiatives. We contribute to the gender and organization literature by providing an understanding of how certain ways of doing gender in organizations facilitate or hinder the legitimacy of CEO successors.

Given the importance of family business to economies and societies, the persistence of gender inequality in succession requires further exploration. While gender theorizing has penetrated mainstream management theorizing, its application in family business literature remains underdeveloped: extant research conceptualizes gender as an objective property of individuals, synonymous with biological sex. In this paper, we adopt a social constructionist approach and study four cases of family business succession, revealing significant insights into how gender structures successor selection. We show how gender dynamics are more complicated than a binary view focused on gender category would imply. Specifically, we identify how family members, through discourses and interactions, socially construct the successor role, and how this gendered construction of the role frames a hierarchy of potential successors. This hierarchy is based on the combination of gender category and the extent to which an individual's traits and characteristics are perceived to align with that role.

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