Promoting family: A contingency model of family business succession

Succession is a challenge to family businesses for a number of reasons, including the need to address the issue of intergenerational handover. This article focuses on one aspect of succession in family business by investigating when family members are preferred as successors. Results from 860 family businesses indicate that specific (tacit) knowledge characteristics combined with a favorable transaction atmosphere, in certain contexts, make a family member the most suitable successor. A conceptual model is presented that outlines when inside-family succession is preferred.