| Family business researchers have agreed that succession planning is among the most important strategic issues in family businesses. However, despite this widely accepted view, succession failure remains the primary cause of family business closures. The current literature on family business succession focuses on the incumbents' perspectives. Relatively few studies emphasize the perspectives of other key stakeholders---successors, family members, and non-family executives. Additionally, the majority of the literature is based on empirical studies of American and European family businesses, which do not accurately represent family businesses globally. Therefore, to ensure a balanced view of family business succession, more research must be conducted with the inclusion of other key stakeholders as well as family businesses in understudied countries. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the perspectives of Thai family business stakeholders on the succession process. Through semi-structured, in-depth interviews, this qualitative study explored stakeholders' perspectives in three domains---organizational, interpersonal, and personal. The organizational domain focused on the boundaries between family, management, and ownership. Many participants expressed their concern about poorly defined boundaries, which caused family tensions and management inefficiency. Some interviewees pointed to the incumbents' reluctance to relinquish control as the underlying cause of this problem and believed that establishing transparent management structures and clear organizational objectives would ease the transition. The interpersonal domain looked at the changing roles of key stakeholders during the succession process. Two main findings were the lack of open communication between family members, especially regarding business matters, due to stakeholders' excessive concern about their personal relationships with one another, and non-family executives' disinterest in playing a key facilitative role in the leadership transition. The personal domain examined the successors' professional readiness and personal willingness to assume the leadership role. The study found that many successors joined the family business out of obligation and were not fully committed to firm performance and sustainability. In fact, these successors often ran their own businesses and intended to eventually leave the family business to pursue their own endeavors. |
