Coming home or breaking free?: career choice intentions of the next generation in family businesses

This study attempts to provide insight on the succession intentions of students with a family business background. It draws from a large-scale dataset collected in 2011 as part of the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students' Survey (GUESSS) project, which analyzes the entrepreneurial intentions of students around the world. Given that the founding intentions of students have been analyzed in great depth over recent years, the present study complements the picture by focusing on succession intentions. [The authors] believe that [the] study provides some fundamentally new insights into family firm succession. [The authors] investigate in detail what motivates students to pursue a career in their parents' firm. To this end, [the authors] explore the individual, family, business and societal-level drivers of succession intentions and conclude with the implications for both senior generation family firm owners and students from family businesses.

Excerpts from publication. Show less