A Study On The Influence Of Successor’s Cultivating Path On Trans-generational Entrepreneurship In Family Business

In the current economic climate, as an important component of China’s private economy,family business is stepping into the period of succession and facing the challenge of transformation and upgrading at the same time. Therefore, it’s necessary to research successors’ trans-generational entrepreneurship in family firms in order to promote the upgrading of China’s economy and the sustainable development of family firms. As a key part of succession process,successor’s cultivating path has important influence on the intergenerational development of family business. On the one hand, successor’s education and career experience are the main ways for the formation of human capital, and researches suggest that successor’s education and career experience are important for trans-generational entrepreneurship. However, there is still a lack of empirical study. On the other hand, under the special background of China’s transitional economy, political connection is a key resource that plays an important role in trans-generational entrepreneurship, as well as a considerable part of successor’s social capital cultivation, which has been neglected in previous studies.Therefore, based on the background of economic transition and the particularity of family business, this paper examines the influence of successor’s cultivating path on trans-generational entrepreneurship from two aspects of human capital cultivation(education and career experience)and social capital cultivation(political connection), and further analyzes the interactive effect between cultivating elements(human capital and social capital) on trans-generational entrepreneurship by studying the moderating effect of political connection on the relationship between human capital and trans-generational entrepreneurship. This paper aims at supplementing and making up the theory about the impact successor’s cultivating path has on trans-generational entrepreneurial behavior in current transitional economy, in order to provide guidance for succession and trans-generational entrepreneurship in family business and empirical evidence for government reform.This paper adopts the method of combining case analysis with empirical research. First of all,the paper reviews and summarizes the related literatures. Secondly, multi-case study is conducted based on the grounded theory. It analyzes the influence of successor’s cultivating path on the intergenerational development of family business, and constructs a theoretical model. Finally,according to the related theory, this paper proposes the research hypotheses, then empirically analyzes the data from 236 listed family firms by using SPSS17.0. The results of this study are as follows:(1) The influence of education experience on trans-generational entrepreneurship:Successor’s education level has a notably positive influence on trans-generational entrepreneurial behavior; The abroad experience doesn’t significantly influence transgenerational entrepreneurial behavior, unless successor obtains the leadership.(2) The influence of career experience on trans-generational entrepreneurship:Successor’s working experience in external firms can significantly increase the probability of trans-generational entrepreneurial behavior; Successor’s unrelated professional experience is significantly and positively correlated with trans-generational entrepreneurial behavior;Successors who start working in family firms as top managers are more likely to conduct trans-generational entrepreneurial behavior than those who don’t.(3) The influence of political connection on trans-generational entrepreneurship:Successors’ political connections have a significant and positive impact on their trans-generational entrepreneurial behavior, while there is no significant relationship between predecessors’ political connections and successors’ trans-generational entrepreneurial behavior.Thus social capital need to be passed on and updated in family firms.(4)The interactive effect between cultivating elements on trans-generational entrepreneurship:Successors’ political connections can significantly moderate the relationship between human capital and trans-generational entrepreneurial behavior in a positive way, that is to say, successors’ political connections can promote successors to take more advantage of their human capital to implement trans-generational entrepreneurship.Based on the above conclusions, this paper puts forward some proposals. Regardless of some significant results, there are still some shortcomings which need to be improved in future because of the limitation of author’s researching ability and resource. Finally, the author points out several future research issues.