Strategic Succession Planning in Family Businesses: Drivers of Intergenerational Continuity and Sustainable Competitive Advantage
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66635/ppa9en31Keywords:
Family Business, Strategic Succession Planning, Intergenerational Continuity, Leadership Development, Sustainable Competitive AdvantageAbstract
Family businesses constitute nearly 70–90% of enterprises worldwide and contribute significantly to employment generation, national income, innovation, and regional economic development. Despite their economic importance, only a small proportion of family firms successfully transition from one generation to the next due to inadequate succession planning, leadership conflicts, governance issues, and resistance to organizational change. Strategic succession planning has therefore emerged as one of the most critical determinants of long-term organizational sustainability and competitive advantage. This study examines the drivers influencing successful intergenerational succession in family businesses and investigates how succession planning contributes to sustainable competitive advantage. The study adopts a quantitative descriptive research design using primary data collected from 54 owners, successors, and senior managers of family-owned enterprises across manufacturing, retail, trading, and service sectors. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire based on a five-point Likert scale. The analysis employs simple statistical techniques including frequency distribution, percentage analysis, mean scores, standard deviation, and rank analysis to facilitate practical interpretation without relying on advanced statistical software.The findings indicate that early succession planning, effective leadership development, transparent communication, governance mechanisms, successor competency, family harmony, professional management practices, and organizational culture significantly influence succession success. Among these, successor competency and structured leadership development emerged as the highest-ranked determinants. The study concludes that succession planning should be viewed as a continuous strategic process rather than a one-time leadership transfer. The research contributes to the literature on family business management by proposing practical recommendations that can assist business owners, policymakers, consultants, and educators in enhancing intergenerational continuity while sustaining long-term organizational competitiveness.
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