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The purpose is to provide a brief summary on the current research development regarding the role of in-laws in family firms’ continuity. Additionally, I provide a perspective on the trends on the research regarding the in-laws involvement and influence in preparing future generations of family firms’ owners/managers. At the end, I conclude on what should be the relevant issues to be explored and researched in the future.

In this paper, I review the literature on the role of in-laws on the family business continuity, particularly, I emphasize the involvement of in-laws in family firms. I found that this topic of family business continuity has not widely researched and the role of in-laws on the future of the family firm has been underestimated in the extant literature. I provide a brief summary on the trends related the involvement of in-laws in the family business continuity and, at the end, I give my conclusions on what should be a research agenda regarding this topic.

Despite previous research, the question of the role of in-laws in family firms remains unanswered from the business-owning family perspective, nor from the in-laws’ perspective. The previous research has raised more questions on this topic. Clearly, the research landscape is vast, and scholars’ callings to find better ways to identify family members are totally justifiable.

Based on the literature review, it can be argued that one of the topics with high potential for future research and development is related to the role of in-laws in the family business continuity, either because they are passively included as part of the family group, without acknowledgment on their involvement or because governance policies have formally excluded them. In this review, I highlight the influence of the in-laws in the family business continuity; particularly, their role in preparing future generations of family firms owners/managers and imprinting them with the family values, culture and believes.

By using ethnographic data and family interviews from eight families in Taipei, Taiwan, this paper aims to delineate how multigenerational families implement parents’ child-rearing values, and how these strategies vary by social class. The primary focus is the child’s mother and her relationship with other family members. I ask the following question: How does a mother in a three-generation family implement her ideal parenting values for her child while being encumbered by the constraints of her parents-in-law? Additionally, how does this intergenerational dynamic vary with family socioeconomic status? To conceptualize this process in such a complex context, I argue that we must understand parenting behaviors as acts of “doing family” and “intensive mothering.”

From 2008 to 2009, I conducted a pilot survey in two public elementary schools to recruit the parents of sixth-grade students. All eight cases of multigenerational families in this paper were selected randomly after being clustered by the parent’s highest education level and family income levels. This paper utilized the mothers’ interviews as the major source to analyze, while the interviews of other family members served as supplementary data.

Two cases, Mrs Lee and Mrs Su’s stories, were selected here to illustrate two distinctive approaches toward childrearing in multi-generational families. Results indicate that white-collar mothers in Taiwan hold the value of concerted cultivation and usually picture the concept of intensive mothering as their ideal image of parenthood. Yet, such an ideal and more westernized child-rearing philosophy often leads to tensions at home, particularly between the mother and the mother-in-law. Meanwhile, blue-collar mothers tend to collaborate with grandparents in sharing childcare responsibilities, and oftentimes experience friction over child discipline in terms of doing homework and material consumption.

Via this analysis of three-generation families in Taiwan, we are able to witness the struggle of contemporary motherhood in East Asia. This paper foregrounds the negotiations that these mothers undertake in defining ideal parenting and the ideal family. On the one hand, these mothers must encounter the new parenting culture, given that the cultural ideal of concerted cultivation has become a popular ideology. On the other hand, by playing the role of daughter-in-law, they must negotiate within the conventional, patriarchal family norms.

Purpose: This chapter focuses on the relations between aging and the perception about the families’ quality of life in a medium-sized Portuguese city. Departing from the descriptions of individuals living with at least one child under 14 years of age, particular emphasis is put on how young adults perceive and incorporate into their speeches the presence and role of non-cohabiting elderly, namely their parents and in-laws, as an expression of the quality of life they experience.

Design/methodology/approach: Data rely on episodic interviews conducted with both men and women with young children (3–14 years old), within a broader sociological research devoted to the study of family rituals. The data collected was analyzed using qualitative techniques of content analysis with the help of NVivo software (QSR). The data is presented recurring to contextualized narratives.

Findings: Data analysis allows to conclude that geography matters in the perception that young adults have when reflecting upon the role of the elderly surrounding them, either their parents or in-laws. The presence and coexistence of generations are perceived as “priceless,” a “fortune,” and a “privilege,” possible in a medium-sized city, where everything is close enough to thicken the informal intergenerational solidarities between grandparents, parents, and grandchildren. Behind the scenes, data, furthermore, discloses unpredictable tensions arising mainly regarding children’s education, rules, and behavior.

Originality/value: This chapter contributes to shed light into the daily life of elderly people who are still independent and active, and the seemingly invisible presence and unimportant role they play in their children and grandchildren’s lives.

Despite more than 50 years of research into gender and work, the impact of female expatriates persists to be underrepresented in mainstream international human resource management (IHRM) literature. The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore the perceptions of married Indian information technology (IT) women regarding career and expatriating discussions they have with their husbands and its impact on their decision making to undertake international assignments.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 married Indian IT women who had undertaken international assignments after marriage. The study includes two data sets, 1: women on less than one-year assignment; 2: women on greater than one-year assignments.

The study found that women who went on short-term assignments of less than one year travelled alone and found it fortunate and convenient to leave their children in the care of their husbands, in-laws, parents and maids. While in the cases of women travelling for longer-term assignments, most husbands accompanied them. The study suggests that while spousal support was the key, having a shared purpose with husbands along with extended family support was equally significant to facilitate women undertaking an international assignment. As an impetus, the authors note a change within the Indian society where both partners come together to make decisions about expatriating.

The authors discuss the implications for IHRM as they relate to gender diversity within organisations.

The research, underpinned by the early workings of a theory of career hierarchy, explores the complexities in expatriation decision-making processes of married women from the emerging economy of India with traditional family values, who are working within a modern and liberal IT industry.

This paper aims offer a benchmark by providing an account of women's experiences with domestic violence in Bangladesh and develops illustrations on coping with abuse.

A case study design was adopted, applying an emic perspective in employing a qualitative research approach to explore and describe women's experiences with and perceptions about domestic violence and their ways of coping in Sherpur District, Bangladesh. In total 25 recently married women participants were purposively sampled by snowballing. In-depth interview data facilitated a latent thematic content analysis.

The findings indicate that women adopt a range of responses to domestic violence. Two key aspects of coping surfaced in the narratives: (1) emotion-driven and (2) problem-driven approaches to abusive situations. Findings point to a range of research issues that require further study such as domestic violence and taboo; somatization; structural gender inequalities; male perpetrators; family dynamics and the intersections of these issues and contexts.

A more proactive way of coping resulted in resilience amidst an abusive environment, whereas passive ways of coping led to a life in distress. It is important however, to understand ways of coping as a continuum rather than a dichotomy.

Significant regional variations by prefecture level exist for the family and the elderly in Japan. This suggests that the Japanese family, and aging society as well, must be studied carefully with close attention to the socio‐cultural characteristics specific to each region and community (Kumagai, 1997a, 1997b). Therefore, it is essential to move the unit of analysis down to the community level rather than the national or even prefecture (regional) level. Social practices and cultural characteristics specific to each region and community are difficult to measure and quantify. Upon careful examination of Japanese married women in the traditional extended family, the theoretical hypothesis was postulated: Whether in urban or rural regions, regardless of the place of residence, married women living with their mother‐in‐law are likely to seek work outside the home. A national random sample of 3,662 Japanese women was analyzed. In conducting Chi‐square significance tests, this hypothesis is proved to be valid. The most striking finding of this study is that working outside the home seems to be one of the effective alternatives adopted by married women in the traditional generational family household. When son’s wives are in the labor force, it is most likely to reduce intergenerational conflict, a negative aspect of co‐residence living arrangements. In other words, working outside the home helps to minimize intergenerational conflict with in‐laws ‐mothers‐in‐law, in particular). Thus, the qualitative analysis of the family can provide effective indicators for the in‐depth analysis of Japanese families. It is, therefore, necessary to propose welfare policies for the elderly in the same manner, rather than simply looking at national average statistics.

This paper aims to explore ethnic minority women’s gendered perceptions and processes of agricultural innovation in the Northern uplands of Vietnam. The key research question asks how women develop innovations and learn new agricultural practices within patriarchal family structures.

In-depth interviews including life histories were conducted with 17 female and 10 male farmers from different socio-economic groups; participant observation and key informant interviews were also carried out.

Women’s innovation processes are deeply embedded in their positions as wives and daughters-in-law. Their innovation tends to be incremental, small-scale and less technological, and they use innovation networks of women rather than those of the formal agricultural institutions, including bringing innovation knowledge from their birth family to the patrilocal household. Unlike men’s perceived innovation, women’s innovation is strongly linked to small-scale entrepreneurship, and it is a powerful approach in the sense that it strengthens the position of women in their families while improving the household economy.

Identifying socially constructed innovation processes helps policymakers to rethink the introduction of ready-made innovation packages, both in terms of content and delivery, and to facilitate innovation for women, as well as men, in marginalized positions.

Understanding the gendered processes of innovation instead of measuring gender gaps in innovation outcomes sheds light on women’s interests and preferences, which can inform policies for supporting women’s innovation and thereby lead to social change, including gender equity.

This paper contributes to the understanding of gendered innovation processes and entrepreneurship associated with agriculture in rural areas in non-Western ethnic-minority contexts, which is an area that past and current research on entrepreneurship has relatively ignored.

Previous studies as well as anecdotes have indicated that parental involvement in adult children’s marital conflicts is fairly common in Korea. This study attempts to explain how in-law conflicts – arguably a structural outcome of the traditional Confucian family – lead to marital disruption in contemporary families.

This study adopts the hypotheses of the corporate group, mother identity, and gendered-role expectations, which are instrumental to understanding the social context in which the legacy of the Confucian culture interacts with the knowledge-based neoliberal economy to revive in-law conflicts. Divorced-couple data are from in-depth interviews and court rulings, and their analysis illustrates the trajectories of marital breakdown.

The findings provide support for the hypotheses. Parents, especially mothers, who heavily invested time and money in their children’s education and career building meddle in their marriages in hopes to ensure the best returns to their investment. Normative prescriptions of gendered roles provide references for the parents regarding the roles of their children and children-in-law, and the gaps between their expectations and perceived reality trigger parental meddling and in-law conflicts. Adult children who are indebted to the parents for their status formation may acquiesce to the parental intervention.

In the traditional patriarchal family, in-law conflicts were restricted to mother- and daughter-in-law relationships, but are now extended to mother- and son-in-law relationships, reflecting a paradoxical twist in gender-role expectations. This chapter suggests that heavy parental investment in their children can have an unexpected consequence increasing the probability of adult children’s marital disruption.

The purpose of this paper is to address an emerging international debate about the involvement of females in perpetrating honour-based abuse (HBA). Presenting new empirical data, this study profiles the different roles played by women, discussing them in relation to gender and their relationships to victims, and argues that acknowledgement of female perpetrators does not fundamentally challenge a gendered interpretation of HBA.

Some 1,474 case files flagged as HBA were gathered from one police force in Southern England and 50 domestic abuse agencies across England and Wales. Descriptive statistics explored which victim, perpetrator and abuse characteristics were associated with female perpetration. Case narratives were thematically analysed to profile the different roles females played. Findings were explored in eight key informant interviews with caseworkers from the services data came from.

This paper finds that: females are more involved in perpetrating HBA than other forms of domestic abuse, but primary perpetrators are still mostly male; victims are overwhelmingly female; the context for abuse is the maintenance of patriarchal values on gender roles; female perpetrator roles vary, meriting further exploration; and female perpetrators can be conceptualised within a gendered framework.

This paper presents important new empirical data to advance the debate on the role of women in perpetrating HBA. It will be of interest to academics, researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners alike.

Women perform the majority of household labour in many families around the world. However, the unequal division of household labour does not lead to dissatisfaction among women. In the present study, the author introduced the intergenerational household assistance to understand married women’s and men’s satisfaction with division of household labour in China, in addition to three major theoretical perspectives in studies of western families (i.e., relative resources, time availability, and gender role ideology). Logistic regression analyses on a nationally representative dataset (the Second Wave Survey of Chinese Women’s Social Status) were performed to study this topic. Consistent with studies in the West, the results show that relative resources, time availability, and gender ideology were associated with married Chinese women’s satisfaction, while married Chinese men’s satisfaction was only associated with time availability (the household labour done by them and their wives). Importantly, married women with parents-in-law’s household assistance tend to be more satisfied than those with help from their parents. The findings demonstrate that Chinese marriages are intertwined with intergenerational relationships and suggest that it is important to take into account of the influence of intergenerational relationships in studies of Chinese marriages.