Heroes of the Green Room – How able successors revitalize and reinvent family firms

Abstract

Drawing on contingency and upper echelon theories, this study conceptualizes family firm CEO succession as a special window of opportunity for the new generation to reinvent and rejuvenate the firm and restore the environment-organization fit that had often deteriorated pre-succession. We argue that CEO-related human capital enables successors to identify and amend misfits, allowing them to re-chart an organization’s course to enhanced performance, especially when the misfit is marked by a turnaround situation. Based on a quantitative analysis of 804 German firms and 31 qualitative interviews, we find support for these coherences and contribute to contingency and upper echelon theories.