With less than 10% of women taking over a business (Observatoire du C.R.A, 2024), this
economic and social force remains under-represented in the French (ent)repreneurial landscape and under-exploited by the scientific community. Indeed, business repurchases seem to reproduce and even amplify the inequalities observed in female entrepreneurship.
In France, as elsewhere, VSEs and SMEs are fertile ground for encouraging female
repreneurship (Cornuau and Poroli, 2010), even in traditionally male sectors. As a result,
strengthening the synergies between practitioners and researchers in order to discuss the issues (societal, economic, cultural, etc.) raised by women should broaden the scope for female entrepreneurship, at a time when the fear of being short of female repreneurs in the coming years is regularly put forward.
Themes and questions to be addressed
For this special issue, therefore, we invite researchers and practitioners to submit contributions on a variety of topics, including the following:
- The vision and representations of gender in the field of repreneurship ;
- Analysis of the specific characteristics of women purchasing businesses: what are the profiles of women taking over businesses: socio-demographic and psychological characteristics, training, and experience? Do they have specific motivations? What are the profiles of the companies (business sectors, workforce, geographical area) being bought (or inherited) by women)?
- The uniqueness of women’s career paths: what advances have been made in our knowledge of women’s career paths (personal, professional, family, etc.) prior to and during the business takeover process?
- Factors that may explain whether or not women actually go ahead with their
- business plans, e.g., in terms of access to finance ;
- The influence of support: is there consistency between the support offered women to help them purchase a business and their needs and expectations? Are the support tools adapted to enable these women involved in the business takeover process to see their project through to a successful conclusion?
- The absence of a “role model”: have women been educated with (ent)repreneurial role models that make it easier to identify with them? Are there role models of women running businesses that can act as a catalyst for cultural prejudice? Are they members of dedicated business networks? What is the contribution of social networks?
- The family context: does the spouse play a key role, what support(s) do they provide and under what conditions? Is there a close circle on which women can rely? Do they manage to balance their private and professional lives (e.g. the Mampreneurship phenomenon)?
- The emotional aspect: can the emotions, whether felt, expressed or, on the contrary, stifled or repressed, lead to specific considerations for women?
- The legitimacy of women taking over a business: how can they establish their credibility in order to develop or even reinvent businesses that may require major changes? How can they assert their identity as managers (far from the imposter syndrome) so as to get the existing team onboard? What management styles do they use
- on a day-to-day basis? Do these new female leaders have a “dark side”?
- ● The impact of trends: What is the impact of decarbonisation4 or artificial intelligence
- on business takeovers?
- The cultural dimension: what are the reasons for differences in repreneurial success, according to gender, in particular contexts (transition companies or others)? How do cultural values translate into practice?
- The place of women in family businesses: what are the succession challenges for widows? What strategies do daughters use? Does intra-family structure influence the commitment and positioning of daughters? Does the father’s support have a major impact?
- The “teachability dilemma”: do programmes exist to promote the spirit of repreneurship among women? To what extent do such educational programmes have an impact on the intentions and skills of students considering the option of buying a business? Can we imagine the emergence of gender-differentiated repreneurial education (RE) to improve their self-confidence? What would be the development, trends, and challenges at national and/or European levels to increase the pool of potential female candidates?
This list of questions dealing with the issues, challenges, and prospects for women’s repreneurship is not exhaustive. The call for contributions is open to all proposals, without
restriction, to further encourage and convince women to better seize the opportunity of taking over a business..
Key dates
● Submission of manuscripts (Version 1): 25 September 2025
● Decision by guest editors – desk reject: 10 October 2025
● First evaluation round: 10 October 2025 to 20 November 2025
● Return of manuscripts to authors (version 2): 15 February 2026
● Second evaluation round: 15 February 2026 to 30 March 2026
● Detailed finalisation (15 days): before 15 April 2026
● Published:10 July 2026