The Impact Of Successor Training Modes On Succession Performance In Family Firms

"Great men 's sons seldom do well" is a curse that family firms all over the world cannot escape,which is in sharp contract with family firms' dream of "built to last".Therefore,succession has always been a hotspot of family business practitioners and theory researchers' concern.It has been estimated that,family firms adopt various successor training modes and the succession performance also differs a lot.Because of this,succession has been a focus topic for family firm practitioners and theory researchers.What kind of successor training mode can lead to good succession performance? So far,we have had very limited understanding of this problem.On the basis of theoretical literature,this research will summarize and describe successor training modes,and carry out theoretical research and empirical analysis on the relationship between successor training modes and succession performance in family firms by studying the family firms that have completed or are about to complete succession.Successors' training and development in family businesses is a learning process,which includes both direct experience learning and indirect vicarious learning.Based on experience learning theory and the exposition of internal/external work experiences' importance on succession performance,this paper creatively builds up “internal job rotation”and “external work experience ”to depict the dimension of “experience learning” on successor training modes in family firms.Based on vicarious learning theory and the exposition of mentoring' s significant role during the process of successor development,this paper regards mentoring as a moderator variable in order to depict the dimension of “vicarious learning” on successor training modes in family firms,analyzing and examining the mediating effects on the relationship between experience learning(includes “internal job rotation” and “external work experience ”)and the succession performance.In a word,this paper based on experience learning theory and vicarious learning theory cry to depict successor training modes in family firms respectively from two dimensions of “experience learning” and “vicarious learning”,analyzing the impact on each of them and their interaction toward the succession performance.In empirical analysis,based on 183 samples of Chinese family business successors' development experience,this paper examines the hypotheses and finds out the valuable results in the use of questionnaire survey data,factor analysis,regression analysis and other methods.As empirical results show:(1)Internal Job Rotation has a significant positive impact on enterprise performance as well as family performance;(2)External Work Experience has a significant positive impact on enterprise performance as well as family performance;(3)mentoring has significant mediating effects on the relationship between external work experience and succession performance including enterprise performance and family performance;(4)mentoring has significant mediating effects on the relationship between internal job rotation and enterprise performance but didn't work for family performance.In the end,this paper is aimed to table feasible proposals for family business succession according to the research findings above.