Innovation in the post-succession phase of family firms: Family CEO successors and leadership constellations as resources

Innovation in the context of succession in family firms remains largely unexplored in empirical research. We investigate the post-succession innovation output of family and non-family CEO successors in family businesses using a sample of 455 German family firm successions. From a resource- and knowledge-based perspective, we examine how successor origin (i.e., family versus non-family CEO), continued predecessor influence, and context factors are related to post-succession innovation output. We find that a family CEO successor, higher successor CEO-related human capital, and prolonged predecessor influence increase the likelihood that post-succession innovation output is realized and, further, that the effect of predecessor CEO influence is moderated by successor CEO-related human capital. These results suggest that in many leadership constellations, distinctive familiness and access to the predecessors' knowledge resources, as well as the transfer of resources and knowledge spillovers, provide a setting that enables innovation.