The Effect Of Successor’s Perceived Power Competition Climate On Succession Performance:Territorial Behavior As A Mediator

As an important part of the market economy,family firms are a strong support for national economic growth.Their operation and development have always been the focus of academic and industrial circles.Especially in China,after more than 30 years of development,most family firms have ushered in a critical stage of the transfer of power from the founding generation to the second generation.In order to maintain the continuity of corporate value culture,child succession fatherhood has been the mainstream model of intergenerational succession of family firms in China,but practical and theoretical experience show that only a few family businesses can be successfully passed on to the next generation.Moreover,in the period of corporate power reform,in order to allow successors to hand over smoothly,founders will equip them with non-family managers to assist them in contacting corporate affairs.However,due to the conflict of values,goals and interests of different stakeholders,it often leads to power competition between "the young masters are difficult to serve the public" and "outsiders" executives,so that successors want to show their strengths,but they are repeatedly restricted and excluded,which makes the performance of enterprises decline after the introduction of "fresh blood",which is a more serious challenge to the foundation of family firms.In addition,family firms are the community of families and enterprises.Successors bear the hope of continuous operation of family firms.Previous studies simply regarded enterprises and family members as a whole,or analyzed the impact of personal characteristics such as the successor’s gender and educational background on performance,ignoring their interaction with enterprises and family members.Relationships and the role of environmental factors are a worthier perspective for in-depth discussion on cracking the succession effect.Therefore,this study is based on the logical framework of social cognition theory,cuts into the perspective of early successors,and explains its impact on the performance of family firms through three elements: individual cognition,behavior and environment.Firstly,because the successor is stimulated by the environment of power competition of the TMT,which will prompt them to have external behaviors to deal with foreign executives and protect their "stabilization".Therefore,this study introduces the territorial behavior of successors to non-family members as an intermediary variable to explain their adverse impact on performance.At the same time,individual cognition and situational factors can influence the mechanism of environmental stimulation and personal behavior.For example,based on good communication and identity with family members,the psychological insecurity of the successor will be weakened,and succession autonomy will make it possible for them to make decisions and influence family firms more freely.Therefore,this paper introduces family harmony and successor autonomy as moderators,and explores the mechanism of the successor’s perception of the power competition climate on succession performance through his territorial behavior towards non-family members.Based on the intergenerational succession samples of family firms in 94 groups of domestic companies containing non-family members,this study adopts a multi-stage questionnaire survey method,regression analysis to verify the relationship between the perception of the power competition climate of the successor and the performance of the successor,and draw the following conclusions:(1)Successors play an intermediary role in the territorial behavior of non-family executives between their perception of power competition climate and succession performance.Specifically,the perception of the power competition climate of successors will promote their territorial behavior towards non-family members,which will have a negative impact on the succession performance of family firms.(2)Family harmony negatively regulates power competition climate perception of the positive relationship with the territorial behavior of non-family members.Specifically,the higher the successor’s perception of family harmony,the less impact of the perception of the power competition climate on his territorial behavior tendency;on the contrary,the lower the successor’s perception of family harmony,the greater the impact of the perception of the power competition climate on his territorial behavioral tendency.(3)The successor’s autonomy positively regulates power competition climate perception of the negative relationship with the territorial behavior of non-family members.Specifically,the higher the autonomy of the successor,the greater the influence of the perception of the power competition climate on its territorial behavior tendency;on the contrary,the lower the autonomy of the successor,the less impact the perception of the power competition climate on the behavioral tendency of his territory.Compared with previous studies,the significance of this study are followed:first,focus on the perspective of successors in the research of family firms,pay attention to the perception of successors on the succession process,and provide new ideas for explaining the effects mechanism of second-generational entry into family firms on enterprise performance;second,to introduce social cognition theory into the field of intergenerational succession of family firms and deeply analyze succession.The interaction between the executive team of the family enterprise enriches the theoretical basis of family enterprise research.Third,this study introduces the successor’s perception of the power competition climate,family harmony and autonomy variables of the executive team,and more systematically analyzes the successor’s territory of non-family members from the perspective of enterprise,family and personal cognition.Behavior,the analysis of this phenomenon is more comprehensive and complete,which better helps to understand the cognitive-behavior transmission path of the successor’s "unstable country" stage,playing a certain guiding role for family firms to smoothly success.