Family business successions between desire and reality

Abstract

Family business successions are commonly considered as one of the most critical events of any family business. Yet, despite extensive research, current evidence on the actual extent to which family business owners accomplish, adapt, or even abandon their initial succession plans is astonishingly still lacking. This paper addresses this issue by overcoming some methodological limitations of previous research on family business successions. The results provide robust insights into a wide mismatch between desire and reality regarding family business succession planning. Thus, transgenerational continuation of family businesses should not be taken for granted. A considerable proportion of business owners abandon their initial succession plans, do not realize the succession in the intended timeframe, or close their business ultimately. There is also a remarkable number of unintended business transfers which have received little attention in research to date.