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Research Scholar's Abstracts 2009 - Sonia Dalmia, Nancy Levenburg

The Succession Process: An Examination of Perceptions From Stakeholders' Perspectives
Sonia Dalmia, Nancy Levenburg
2009

The project will undertake a quantitative research study to examine the perceptions of an important group of stakeholders (i.e., customers/clients of a family owned firm amidst a succession transition) that has not been examined in any prior study. Within in a large firm, the owner/founder may be "invisible" to customers/clients. Yet this is not necessarily true in a small firm, in which s/he may play a highly visible role. Further, in a service business, there may be regular interactions between the service provider (who may be the owner/founder) and the firm's customers, which (depending on the age of the firm) may have extended over decades.

In these small, service-oriented businesses that are characterized by high customer involvement, the family owned firm may be placing itself at risk if it makes the wrong successor decision- from the viewpoint of its customers/clients. Both the size of the firm and the industry in which the firm operates (goods versus services) introduce two environmental factors that can impact the successor decision process- and, ultimately, the family firm's future success. Consequently, it seems prudent to examine the perceptions/views of customers/clients towards the future successor.

This study purports to query the customers/clients of a family owned financial planning firm in which the male owner, at age 66 years, is planning to retire. In addition to advising/assisting clients himself, the firm presently employs one other (male) financial planner, a (male) operations manager, a (female) office manager, and a (female) secretary.A female granddaughter (21 years old) has been designated as the founder's successor, with a planned transition occurring upon her graduation from college, with a B.S. degree in Finance.

Thus, a primary research objective will be to assess the perceptions of the firm's clients about the grandfather, and identify their expectations towards the successor granddaughter. Will their views differ, and if so, how? The research is significant in that it is being conducted within two important contexts that have not been investigated in prior family business succession studies: (1) a "skipped" generation (i.e., succession from grandfather to granddaughter, rather than father-son or father-daughter); and (2) gender-related issues.