Leadership succession and its impact on organizational resilience: A contingency perspective in engineering firms

Abstract

This study explores the barriers and strategies of leadership succession in engineering consulting firms and examines their implications for organizational resilience. Framed by contingency theory, the research investigates how context-sensitive succession practices can enhance resilience of professional service organizations in dynamic and uncertain environments. A qualitative multiple case study was conducted through semi-structured interviews with ten senior leaders from nine long-established engineering consulting firms operating for over 25 years, alongside a representative of the national consultant association. Thematic analysis revealed five major barriers to effective leadership succession: founder dependency, unstructured succession processes, generational misalignment, passive board roles, and resistance to change. Firms have adopted adaptive strategies to address this challenge, such as mentoring, collaborative leadership development, board engagement, and leadership-linked shares. When these practices were aligned with internal organizational structures and external pressures, they enabled improved leadership continuity, knowledge retention, and stakeholder trust, which are key indicators of organizational resilience. This study theoretically contributes by positioning leadership succession as a mechanism of organizational fit and advancing contingency theory in the context of a professional service company. Practically, it offers a four-phase succession-planning framework to support engineering consulting firms in diagnosing contingencies, designing strategies, and maintaining resilience during leadership succession. This study provides novel insights into the underexplored intersection of leadership succession and organizational resilience in project-based firms operating in emerging economies and highlights the importance of context-adapted succession strategies for long-term organizational viability.