Socially Sustainable Technologies Flagship - Research Flagship Project
Family Business Succession Planning: Dynamics, Barriers and Strategies
Project Code: ARC LP0990478
Family Business Succession Planning: Dynamics, Barriers and Strategies is a two and a half year ARC-funded Linkage Project, in collaboration with the industry partner organisation, Pitcher Partners. It explores the dynamics that shape planning among family businesses, the barriers which block it, and the strategies which facilitate it. The project is being undertaken by researchers in The Swinburne Institute of Social Research, in partnership with the Faculty of Business and Enterprise, at Swinburne University of Technology, and the industry partner organisation. The project commenced in October 2010.
Research Team
Chief Investigators: Professor Michael Gilding (SUT/The Swinburne Institute), Professor Russell Kenley (SUT/FBE), Dr Richard Shrapnel (Pitcher Partners)
Postdoctoral Research Fellow: Dr Sheree Gregory (SUT/The Swinburne Institute)
APA-I Candidate: Ms Barbara Cosson (SUT/The Swinburne Institute)
Publications and Other Research Outputs
Gilding, M. (2010), 'Reflexivity Over and Above Convention: The New Orthodoxy in the Sociology of Personal life, Formerly Sociology of the Family', The British Journal of Sociology, 61 (4): 757-77.
Gilding, M., Gregory, S., and Cosson, B. (2011), 'A Typology of Motives in Family Business Succession Planning: Institutionalisation, Implosion, Imposition and Individualisation', Refereed Proceedings of The 2011 Australian Sociological Association Conference, The University of Newcastle.
Context
Family business owners and managers often seek help in succession planning from trusted professionals - advisors such as accountants and lawyers. Yet the problems arising from succession planning are not primarily financial or legal, but rather social. Family Business Succession Planning involves a complex array of decisions and processes, embedded in family communication and decision-making. There is substantial knowledge of succession planning in family business research, but much of it overlooks its sociological dimensions.
Research Program
The research project aims to: understand the uncertainty and delay around family business succession planning; clarify the dynamics which inform succession planning, and develop effective strategies directed towards orderly succession planning. The research project will deploy sociological perspectives drawing upon economic sociology and the sociology of families, and strategic management studies. The research involves a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques including a large-scale survey, ethnographic field work and interviews, and network analysis techniques.
Phase 1
The first stage of the study involves the embedding of the Research
Fellow and APA-I Researcher within the industry partner organisation to engage
closely with family businesses and professional advisors, grounded in the Pitcher
Partners' succession planning program. Ethnographic field work will commence to
identify six family business succession planning case studies. Fieldwork across
phase 1 and 2 will be centered on succession planning program delivery, patterns
of family business involvement and family involvement, decisions and realignments
throughout the program, the role and influence of professional advisors, and
outcomes. Interviews will be undertaken from multiple perspectives to gauge
complex aspects of meaning, process and differences in family businesses, their
effects upon delay and uncertainty in succession planning, and their implications
for devising more effective strategies in the field.
Phase 2
The second stage involves conducting a large-scale
industry survey to understand the full variety of positions and perspectives within
family businesses, extending beyond owners and managers. This will include: men and
women, multiple generations; different family branches; owners and managers; family
by birth and family by marriage, and non-family stakeholders. The survey will
address attitudes and behaviors in relation to family business succession planning,
such as expectations around business continuity, efficiency, negotiability of family
relationships, equal inheritance, tax planning and family provision.
Phase 3
The third stage involves data analysis utilising SPSS,
Nvivo 9.0 and network analysis techniques. Statistical analyses will be conducted to
identify 'clusters' of experiences, sentiments and solidarities within family
businesses from data gathered in the survey. Interview data and ethnographic field
notes will be managed through the use of Nvivo 9.0. Network analysis will be based
upon data gathered during interviews, directed towards identifying and understanding
patterns of trust, solidarity and communication across family businesses and provides
a means to understand relational aspects within family business that come into play
in the course of succession planning.
Project Outcomes
The study will provide a basis to generate better strategies, protocols and policies for informing orderly succession planning of family businesses in the Australian context.
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