Purpose

This study sheds light on a hitherto understudied group in family business literature: widows. We explore the roles a widow may take following the unexpected death of her owner-manager spouse when she had no salient role in the business prior to the death.

Design/methodology/approach

We used a qualitative approach to research, to study inductively the roles considered and taken by three widows who unexpectedly succeeded as owners of Swedish privately held family firms. We conducted semi-structured interviews with widows and children in top management.

Findings

We construct a typology of four main roles a widow can take and analyse the underlying dimensions that they represent. We also analyse to which extent the choice of role widow can be explained by psychological ownership and double-loss theory. The typology can be used as a tool for family business owners and their advisors as the basis of an open and non-prejudiced discussion of the choices available to a widow.

Originality/value

We have investigated the factors that influence a widow's decision whether to take over the business or not, as suggested in previous research by, for example, Martinez et al. (2009). We explore the roles a widow can consider and adopt. The study advances our understanding of how businesses can remain as family firms also in the event of the unexpected death of an owner-manager (De Massis et al., 2008). We hereby contribute to the literature on sudden successions and on women in family businesses.

中文翻译：

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当死亡将我们分开时的所有者-经理——寡妇在家族企业中的突然继承角色

目的

这项研究揭示了家族企业文献中迄今未被充分研究的群体：寡妇。我们探讨了寡妇在她的所有者兼经理配偶意外死亡后可能扮演的角色，因为她在去世前在企业中没有重要角色。

设计/方法/途径

我们采用定性研究方法，归纳性地研究了三位寡妇所考虑和担任的角色，她们出人意料地成为了瑞典私营家族企业的所有者。我们对高层管理人员的遗孀和子女进行了半结构化访谈。

发现

我们构建了寡妇可以担任的四种主要角色的类型学，并分析了它们所代表的潜在维度。我们还分析了角色寡妇的选择在多大程度上可以用心理所有权和双重损失理论来解释。该类型学可用作家族企业所有者及其顾问的工具，作为对寡妇可用选择进行公开和无偏见讨论的基础。

原创性/价值

正如 Martinez 等人在之前的研究中所建议的那样，我们调查了影响寡妇决定是否接管企业的因素。(2009)。我们探索寡妇可以考虑和采用的角色。该研究加深了我们对企业如何在所有者兼经理意外死亡的情况下仍能保持家族企业的理解（De Massis等人，2008 年）。我们特此为有关突然继任和家族企业中女性的文献做出贡献。