Research On Entrepreneurial Tacit Knowledge Of Intergenerational Transfer And Influence On Succession In Family Business

As a timeless organizational form of enterprise,family business made a primary contributor to the economic and social throughout the world.In China,family businesses account for the majority of private enterprises,and also made an important contributors to national economy.It has been 30years since the first family business was born in China till now and today their founders are confronting the realities of succession and retirement.It has been estimated that,only small family businesses could survive into the second generation,and few into the third generation.Although a lot of researches have been carried on to solve this challenges,we still know little about family business succession.According to several authors and consultants,one of the main reasons is the lack of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge in family business studies.In family business research area,entrepreneurial tacit knowledge which is a part of"familiness" for keeping competitive advantage is significant.There is strategic capital which is imbedded in the entrepreneurial tacit knowledge,and could been smoothly transferred than nonfamily businesses.Especially in China intergenerational transfer of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge has a great impact on succession process of family businesses,which is a core element of succession.Therefore,it is important to study intergenerational transfer of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge in Chinese family businesses by strategic management and knowledge management.Based on practice and theoretical background mentioned above,this paper mainly answers what the intergenerational transfer of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge impacts on successful succession and how its mechanism is in the Chinese family business succession,what the mediation of Succession Willingness is.In the research of succession,it is concluded that there is no realities of measurement scale about intergenerational transfer of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge in family business studies yet.Therefore,it is important to create the measurement scale of intergenerational transfer of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge.Hence,by in-depth interview with 21 entrepreneurs,we collected abundant data and conducted a structured content analysis with Grounded theory.The empirical results indicate that the integrity&studiousness,enterprising spirit and personal social relations are three kinds of important elements that need to be transferred and all of them were passed the test of reliability and validity.We mainly explored the relation of intergenerational transfer of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge and successful succession in family business.In this chapter,all of the hypotheses were tested in 133 Chinese family businesses facing succession issues by survey questionnaire.The results show that elements of integrity&studiousness and personal social relations are positively correlated with the successful passing down of family business;factors of integrity&studiousness is positively correlated with two generation's willingness to take over the business.When two generations' willingness occurs spontaneously,incumbent enterpriser's willingness will have great influence on successful delivery of business.At the same time,incumbent enterpriser's willingness has complete mediating effects on the relation between the following enterpriser with integrity&studiousness and successful business transfer,thus sustaining "ever blooming family citation".The paper main contribution is summarized as followed:to introduce intergenerational transfer of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge variables in the study of family businesses and to pay attention to the essential impact factors for family businesses;to combine relevant research results of strategic management and knowledge management theory for the accumulation work of building up the theoretical basis of family businesses;to be the first to quantify intergenerational transfer of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge measurement scale and promote the succession study of intrinsic essence in family businesses;also to the first to empirically test the mechanism of the intergenerational transfer of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge and successful succession.In fact,the exploration study of intergenerational transfer of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge will help understand the profile of the family businesses succession in our government.The field of family business succession study is still very young in China,and only a few relatively important issues were studied in this dissertation.In the future research,the improvement of transfer of entrepreneurial tacit knowledge at individual-organization level,organization-organization level,organization-individual level,are all interesting topics that require in-depth study.