The Empirical Study On The Influence & Functional Mechanism That The Modes Of Family Business Seccession Planning Have On The Seccession Performance

In the past, the studies of family business succession planning mainly focused on the analysis of the content and tache in the process of family business succession, and seldom on the modes and programs which can be referred to. Also, the studies were rather qualitative ones which would be a case, an anecdote or deductive ones than quantitative ones.This study sums up the modes and programs mentioned above, and has an empirical analysis of the relationship between them and succession performance for the first time. Besides, the competence of successor is introduced as a mediator, and the mediating effect to the relationship between the modes of family business succession planning and succession performance has been studied. Of all the studies which can be referred to, there has no such one. From this point of the view, the study inaugurates a new way in the study of family business succession planning.The selecting and training successors, the management transition, the family businesses ownership and the family's property transition, the manners of making crucial decisions of the family businesses after the succession and the making of primary strategy and planning after the succession, make up of the main parts of family business succession planning, the rapid and effective communicating and corresponding during the course are also included. Here, the study centralizes on the anterior ones which have a pivotal effect on the succession.We have summarized six styles of successors'experiences which are probably representative and have significant influences on the competence of the successor and the performance of the succession. With the expandedness of the empirical research, we find that it is the evaluation of the importance of the successor's experiences in the firm and not the experiences themselves has notable effects on the succession performance. The degree of the successor and his working experience in other firms has an influence on the succession performance as well. The working experiences in the government and the social training have not brought significant effect to the succession performance statistically.There are ten modes of the selecting decisions of the successor, and the mode that the founder of the firm and the TMT choose the successor together has positive effects for both dimensions of the family business succession performance. The following cases all can increase the objective succession performance significantly: the founder's consulting with the specialists, the enterprise making a clear selective standard, the candidates taking over family business together and managing the firm together, a candidate taking the whole charge and managing the firm with the other candidates together. The founder consulting with the representatives of family members, the founder consulting with the whole family, the founder making the choice himself, the candidates choosing the successor themselves and the counsellor deciding separately are the five manners of selecting successor , and they all haven't significant influence on both dimensions of family business succession performance.Of the ten distributing and inheriting modes of the firm's ownership and the family property, five of them could increase the objective succession performance significantly: the main successor holding the company, inheriting the stocks according to the contribution, inheriting the stocks according to the criterion having been set for the successors, the family holding the company as a whole but having a clear distribution inside the family, and the one who manage the enterprise holding it when there are several successors and several enterprises. When the former entrepreneur still holds the firm, significantly negative influences will be found on both dimensions of succession performance."The successors sharing the stocks averagely","the successors purchasing the stocks themselves","the family possessing the stocks as a whole and not distributing them to exact members inside the family","letting a successor inherit the firm and helping the other successors to found new enterprises"are the four modes which have no significant influences on the dimensions of succession performance.As to the transition of the management power, the succession performance of the family firm will increase if the physical and spiritual life of the retired entrepreneur are ensured, and will decrease significantly in case that the retired Entrepreneur still intervene in the management of the company. Whether making a plan and carrying it out in the transition of the management power has not significant influence on the succession performance statistically.The competence of the successors of family firms is composed of eight dimensions: the commitment to organization, honesty and credibility, the judgment in decision-making, the ability of learning and communicating, the self-knowledge and deploitation, the management of relationship, the scientific management and the professional strategy. Confirmed factor analysis reveals that the eight factors model fits well with the data of the questionnaires. And the eight factors can be reduced to two second-order factors: the management talents and the management skills. The judgment in decision-making, the ability of learning and communicating, the commitment to organization, the self-knowledge and deploitation, honesty and credibility, belong to the former one, while the other three factors belong to the latter one. This structure is also confirmed by the confirmed factor analysis. According to the results from the regression analysis, the non-intellective factors such as the commitment to organization, honesty and credibility have a more significant correlativity to the succession performance of the family firms. This reminds the founders that these factors should be more emphasized in the course of the selecting and training successors.The research on the mediating effects of the successors'competence shows that, the successor competence partly mediates the impact that the importance of inner experience the successor evaluates have on the family business succession performance, completely mediates the impact that the degree and its importance and the manner of the transition of the management power have on the family business succession performance. The mediating effects that the successor competence have on the relationship between the modes of selecting successors, the distributing and inheriting of the ownership of family businesses and succession performance have not confirmed , for the variables are all classified ones. The firm's culture has a moderating effect on the relationship between the modes of family business succession planning and the competence of successors. This indicates that the influences the modes of family business succession planning have on the succession performance would vary in different circumstances.