Family Business Review

This article examines the early succession stage of a public family firm through a single longitudinal real-time case study conducted over a period of 10 years. We found that, at this stage, the regulation of interdependent conflicts of interest (between family and nonfamily shareholders, and between majority and minority family shareholders) is a prominent objective of the incumbent generation in the purpose of preparing both the firm and the family to facilitate succession. Moreover, we suggest that stewardship, through reciprocal altruism at the family branch level, combined with a permanent collaborative process between generations and a flexible succession “plan” explains at least partially the observed outcomes (shared vision on future ownership and control, and new family firm governance and interfamily branch relationships).

Incumbents’ attitude toward intrafamily succession (IFS) is a critical individual-level determinant of family firms’ IFS intention, which is, in turn, an important component of family business essence. Knowledge about its antecedents, however, is fragmented and very limited. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior and general attitude literature, hypotheses about the situational and individual antecedents of family firm incumbents’ attitude toward IFS were developed and tested with a sample of 274 Italian family firm incumbents. Results show that incumbents’ attitude toward IFS is indeed influenced by both situational and individual antecedents as well as by their interactions.

In a qualitative study of 19 family businesses, we examine the dynamics of successor teams, using insights from the family dynamics and succession literature and teams and conflict theory in family business. In-depth interviews with family firm leaders identified two major successor team performance outcomes, a positive track leading to team commitment and a negative track resulting in dissolution of the team and potentially the family firm. Our findings are encapsulated by 10 propositions and a model of successor team dynamics.

The aim of this research is to study the moderating role of family management in the relationships between the intensity of research and development and the occurrence of continuous technological innovation and between the existence of technological innovation outcomes and long-term firm performance. The results show that family management reduces efficiency in the conversion of research and development expenses into technological innovation outcomes over time. Our findings also suggest that the influence of family management significantly contributes to improving the effect of the achievement of technological innovation on long-term performance.