The Duality of Internal and External Development of Successors: Opportunity Recognition in Family Firms

The study contributes to the family business literature by examining the intersection of succession and opportunities and extends an existing line of research on entrepreneurial behavior in family firms by examining opportunity perception by 119 family business successors. The authors investigate the successors’ self-efficacy, education, and work experience, together with their perception of entrepreneurial opportunities. The results suggest that successors who perceive new opportunities balance and combine their family firm—specific human capital built through experience within the family firm with general human capital built through education and other work experience to generate new ideas leading to the entrepreneurial opportunity perception.