The Intervention Effects of Succession Planning on Offspring’s Willingness to Take over Family Businesses—An Experimental Study Based on Behavioral Decision-Making and Opportunity Cost Theories

Abstract

The fact that offspring's willingness to take over family business is extremely low is a severe problem hindering Chi-nese family businesses' succession. This paper, based on behavioral decision-making theory and opportunity cost the-ory, identifies the decision-making attribute of offspring's willingness to take over the business first, then explores and verifies the intervention effects of succession planning and temporal distance on such willingness. Experimental data from 135 samples indicate: offspring's willingness to take over the business is significantly higher in the situation where parents develop a complete succession plan than in the situation where no succession plan is made; temporal dis-tance moderates the effects of succession planning on offspring's willingness. The study is supposed to provide theo-retical evidence and practical suggestions for family business to promote offspring's willingness to be the successor of family business.