Female External Successors

In France, only 20% of family business successions or transfers to employees, and only 5% of external business transfers, are undertaken by a woman. The qualitative methodology is justified by the nature of this research question, which is rarely studied in the literature on business takeovers. Case studies are recommended by Yin to understand events, interactions and social, complex and particular situations, which is the case here, since it is a question of understanding the influence of gender, as a social construction, on the progress of the external business transfer. However, before the signing of the transfer, the most difficult thing is to establish their legitimacy as soon as they wish to enter an industry that is considered masculine. The credibility problems for women when dealing with banks has already been particularly noted in the literature on women entrepreneurs, but here we show that it concerns more potential partners.