Title: Social skills in family business succession: going beyond economic-centred goals

Authors: Hedi Yezza

Addresses: OCRE-Lab, EDC Paris Business School, 70 Galerie des Damiers – Paris la Défense 1, 92415 Courbevoie Cedex, Paris, France; School of Management, Université de Sherbrooke, 500 Boulevard de l'Université, Sherbrooke, Québec J1K 2R1, Canada

Abstract: This study builds on previous research on the required competencies of potential CEOs in the family succession process. Whilst aiming to improve the family business literature by exploring the particularities of emerging economies in Africa, this study's main objective is to highlight the importance of a successor's social skills during the succession process, taking into consideration non-economic-centred goals. For this purpose, both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied. First, we conducted five qualitative case studies among Tunisian family business firms. Then, we strengthened our results with a quantitative study by using 105 questionnaires with family business companies that experienced at least one succession in their recent history. The results show that social skills play an important role and have a positive impact on non-economic-centred goals. These goals - rooted in studies developed around the socio-emotional wealth concept - will be discussed in this paper.

Keywords: family business; social skills; successors; non-economic centred goals; socio-emotional wealth.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2023.132852

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2023 Vol.49 No.4, pp.524 - 546

Received: 19 Mar 2020
Accepted: 21 Apr 2020
Published online: 13 Aug 2023 *

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