I want to break free:  Successor Emancipation in Family Business

Miruna Radu-Lefebvre; Vincent  Lefebvre

doi:10.18543/bee.2755

Miruna Radu-Lefebvre Audencia Business School https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2595-9547
Vincent Lefebvre Audencia Business School https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9271-6089

Keywords: Successor, intra-family succession, emancipation

Abstract

Family business successors live at the nexus of past, present and future, nourished and inspired by past legacies while also craving to build a brand-new future. The senior generation is generally the guardian of firm continuity in charge of preserving past achievements, whereas the next generation might dream about introducing change and innovation within the current landscape of the family firm. Yet these attempts too often trigger resistance and anxiety in the senior generation, who might respond with increasing control and suspicion to any tentative of challenging the status quo such as transforming current products, services, business models, or organizational structures. Successors operate at the intersection of these opposite forces of conservatism and reform, and one of their major issues is that they need to handle them effectively, that is without jeopardizing family relations and harmony nor losing themselves into the process. Unless they succeed in doing so, succession failure might follow. By combining two different streams of literature grounded in distinct disciplines, namely succession literature in family business and emancipation literature in entrepreneurship, we reveal successor emancipation as a novel explanation of why successions fail and offer some practical advice on how to handle these tensions in intra-family succession.

Received: 10 May 2023
Accepted: 28 Jun 2023

Author Biographies

Miruna Radu-Lefebvre, Audencia Business School

Dr, HDR is a Professor of Entrepreneurship and the Editor-in-chief of Entrepreneurship & Regional Development. She is the holder of the Chair Family Entrepreneurship & Society at Audencia Business School, France and Board member of the STEP Project Global Consortium (Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices). Her main research interest is the social construction of entrepreneurs and successors, exploring and theorizing the interplay of identities, emotions, social representations and gender in entrepreneurial discourse and practices. Her research has been published in Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Organization Studies, International Small Business Journal, Journal of Small Business Management, Technovation and International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research, among others.

Vincent Lefebvre, Audencia Business School

Dr, HDR is a Professor of Entrepreneurship and Head of Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Innovation department at Audencia Business School, France and an associate researcher at IAE Paris-Sorbonne. He is the Social media editor of Entrepreneurship & Regional Development and Associate editor of the Revue de l’Entrepreneuriat. After a 10-year professional experience as a support for entrepreneurs in start-up and business takeover contexts in France and Spain, he did a PhD in entrepreneurship at CNAM, France and engaged in research where his interests span from entrepreneurial identity and practices to entrepreneurial networks, entrepreneurial finance, entrepreneurial education and succession in family firms. His research has been published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Technovation, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, and Futures, among others.

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