Management Review ›› 2022, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (8): 271-285.

• Organization and Strategic Management • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Family Aspirations and Succession Planning: A Study Based on Chinese Data

Lv Feifei1, Guo Yaqi1, Gao Hao2, Nie Jing1   

  1. 1. Sydney Institute of Industry and Commerce, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444;
    2. PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100083
  • Received:2019-09-17 Online:2022-08-28 Published:2022-09-21

Abstract: Based on the theory of corporate behavior theory and socioemotional wealth (SEW), this paper examines the relationship between family’s financial and nonfinancial aspirations and succession planning and tests the moderating role of entrepreneur’ s emotional attachment. This research model extends the research framework of performance feedback model which focuses merely on economic reference points. The results show that the realization extent of family’s financial aspirations and continuity of family line are both positively related to family firm’s succession planning behavior. Besides, entrepreneur’ s emotional attachment strengthens the positive effects of family’s financial aspiration and continuity of family line on succession planning. Additionally, entrepreneur’ s emotional attachment substitutes the positive effects of family harmony on succession planning.

Key words: family aspirations, succession planning, emotional attachment, behavior theory of the firm, socioemotional wealth