Retaining reluctant successors in family firms: The roles of childhood exposure and affective commitment
通过对25家多代家族企业43位接班人的访谈，研究童年接触家族企业的经历如何影响接班人的承诺，以及青年期的关键事件如何修复负面情绪、重新激发其情感承诺，从而克服退出倾向。
Dysfunctional family interactions can harm the family system and sabotage a family firm’s succession process; however, some families overcome deleterious experiences and successfully transition their firms to the next generation. This qualitative study investigated how successor commitment is impacted by childhood exposure to the family firm (CEFF), as well as how withdrawal from the process can be overcome by revelatory incidents that rebuild positive emotions, repair the damage of negative behaviors, and rekindle successor engagement. Drawing on the family business succession and commitment literatures, we interviewed 43 successors in 25 multigenerational family firms, examining how their family relationships and significant childhood experiences influenced their commitment development. We extend successor commitment theory by developing a model and six propositions describing how affective commitment impacts a successor’s decision to leave, stay, or re-engage with the firm after negative childhood experiences lead to withdrawal intentions and how incidents in young adulthood can renew a successor’s affective commitment. Based on our findings, we propose that family firms can overcome successor withdrawal if negative behaviors in families do not evolve into dysfunctional family systems.