An entrepreneurial process perspective on succession in family firms

Mattias Nordqvist (), Karl Wennberg (), Massimo Bau’ and Karin Hellerstedt
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Massimo Bau'

Small Business Economics, 2013, vol. 40, issue 4, 1087-1122

Abstract: We review and analyze previous literature on succession in family firms from an entrepreneurial process perspective. Through a three-step cluster analysis of 117 published articles on succession in family firms published between 1974 and 2010, we find several themes within which succession can be understood from an entrepreneurial process perspective where both the entry of new owners and exit of old owners are associated with the pursuit of new business opportunities. We identify gaps within each cluster and develop a set of research questions that may guide future research on succession as an entrepreneurial process. Since succession involves implications for individuals, families and firms, we suggest researchers should adopt a multilevel perspective as they seek answers to these research questions. Our review and analysis also underlines the need to focus on ownership transition rather than only management succession, and the importance of carefully defining both succession and family firm. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Keywords: Succession; Ownership transition; Family firms; Entrepreneurial process; Opportunity recognition; Literature review; L21; L 25; L26; M10; M21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11187-012-9466-4 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:40:y:2013:i:4:p:1087-1122

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/11187/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11187-012-9466-4

Access Statistics for this article

Small Business Economics is currently edited by Zoltan J. Acs and David B. Audretsch

More articles in Small Business Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().