Human Resource Management in Family Business Succession: Victim or Saviour?

Abstract

Each year thousands of family business, mainly SMEs, fail in their succession process. Previous research holds that succession planning and management professionalization are the key elements for family business facing succession but tends to give little attention to the role of human resource management (HRM). This paper sheds light on the part that HRM can play to preserve family business at the risky stage of succession. A study was conducted with multiple qualitative case studies. The analysis was done at both intra-site and inter-site levels and based on the matrix analysis and display approach (Miles and Huberman, 2003). Our findings show that HRM can help to diminish the risk of family business succession by reducing the dependence to family management through personnel empowerment and improvement of organizational environment. However, potential positive HRM outcomes for succession are only possible given the condition of prior HRM professionalization and family management support.