Succession Process: A Chance for Rebirth or Failure of a Family Business

Abstract

Family business succession has been identified in the majority of research studies as a critical period in a life cycle that often results in failure of a family business. The main purpose of this study is to explore succession as a process of a family business rebirth by enhancing the future leader’s innovativeness. Since knowledge is recognized as enabler of innovations, the study focuses on the intersections of innovation, knowledge and family business succession. The model of the successor’s innovativeness as precondition for the family business’s rebirth is proposed. Two main constructs being of crucial importance for the family business’s rebirth emerged from the model. The first one is the process of creation of new knowledge through four knowledge conversion modes and the second one is the “ba” as a shared concept where knowledge is created. We find both constructs as important guidelines for future theoretical and empirical research. Keywords: family business, succession, innovation, innovativeness, knowledge, knowledge creation