Succession in family firms: how to improve family satisfaction and family harmony

Every family firm has to be transferred to a next generation or it ceases to be a family business. Family firm successions are far from easy processes. In this study, we focus on successor choice, successor entry strategy and timing as well as on the existence of trigger events. We test these hypotheses using MANOVA and t-tests on data of 152 German family firms. Our findings reveal that family harmony is higher when the family is involved in the decision making process and when successors enter the business in the age of 17–28 years. Respondents of family firms in which succession was triggered by any event show a lower satisfaction with the succession process. However, the entry strategy of successors does not play any role for the succession outcome.