Reducing the Hindering Forces in Intra-Family Business Succession

Abstract

The majority of research has focused on how families can best prepare to hand the family business to the next generation and concentrated mainly on factors that facilitate succession. However, very few studies attempted to discover a set of factors that may inhibit and prevent intra-family succession. In this study we develop research propositions regarding the impact of the antecedent issues inhibiting the critical success factors for effectiveness and satisfaction with an intra-family successful succession. It is hoped that the conceptual framework advanced in this study and further empirical work will give us a much better understanding of the various issues that inhibit and possibly prevent intra-family succession such as, the process issue of identity confirmation; the individual issue of the owner’s age; the relation issue of the family firm’s degree of formalization; the context issue of outside options for potential successors and; the financial issues of low capital stock and variability of earnings.