The Effect of Value Congruence Between Founder and Successor on Successor’s Willingness: The Mediating Role of the Founder–Successor Relationship

Abstract

Drawing from social exchange theory, this article explores the founder–successor relationship quality as a mediated pathway in examining the effects of founder–successor value congruence on successor’s willingness to take over the business. Based on survey data from 102 founder–successor dyads, polynomial regression analysis shows that when both a founder and a successor have high value congruence in family prosperity, the relationship quality will be enhanced, which leads to higher successor’s willingness. When there is value incongruence between a founder and a successor, the successor’s family prosperity value has a more important impact on the founder–successor relationship and successor’s willingness.

The Effects of Family Firm CEO Traditionality on Successor Choice: The Moderating Role of Socioemotional Wealth

“…In contrast, family members who have low identification with the firm are more likely to develop careers outside the family business, which shrinks the internal talent pool of potential successors. Recent empirical evidence has shown that family members are less willing to be successors when their commitment to the family is low and the incumbent's commitment to the family is high, because such CEO-successor value incongruence hinders the quality of their relationship (J. S. Lee et al, 2019). Thus, traditional CEOs are less likely to believe they can select the appropriate candidate from the existing pool of family members when the family's identification with the firm is low.…”

Instrumental Love: Political Marriage and Family Firm Growth

“…Although our findings suggest that family firms’ growth is well explained by political marriage and its unique characteristics of length and romantic love, other factors related to family ties remain unexplored. For instance, relationship quality between family business owners and their children (e.g., Lee, Zhao, & Lu, 2019), offspring’ s self-esteem and identification with the firm (Craig, Dibbrell, & Davis, 2008; Zellweger, Eddleston, & Kellermanns, 2010), and the degrees of family harmony (Graves & Thomas, 2008) affects family members’ motivation to access resources via political marriage and thus in turn determines the growth pathways of family firms. As such, it would be interesting to explore how different types and characteristics of family ties affect a firm's growth.…”

Entry Timing as a Mixed Gamble in Cross-border Acquisition Waves: A study of Family Firms

“…Founders play an important role in guiding the strategic behavior of family-controlled firms and are more committed to long-term growth objectives compared with later generations (Kelly et al, 2000;Schierstedt et al, 2020). Values and beliefs established by founders become institutionalized over time in the form of long-term goals, which may last across generations (Athanassiou et al, 2002;Lee et al, 2019;Schein, 1995). Due to their affective attachment to the family business, founders tend to preserve SEW in CBAs compared with successive generations (Brune et al, 2019;Haider et al, 2020).…”