The Research On The Relationship Between Successor Characteristics,Entrepreneurial Orientation And Firm Performance In Family Enterprises

China has entered the peak period of family business inheritance.The success of family businesses is mainly reflected in the continuous prosperity of the business after the second generation of the family takes over,and the successor plays an important role in this process.Faced with the challenge of authority legitimacy after succession,successors often make strategic choices under the influence of their personal characteristics in order to achieve the growth of enterprise performance.At the same time,under the background of the new normal of economy,family enterprises are generally faced with new challenges of transformation and upgrading.Entrepreneurial attempts are an important means for successors to establish authority and lead the transformation and upgrading of enterprises,which is of great significance for family enterprises to obtain the advantages of sustainable development and realize the long-term foundation.From the perspective of successors,this paper selects the educational level,overseas background and sibling inheritance conflict of family successors as independent variables according to the guidance of the characteristics of business managers in the high-level theory.Through the construction of the model,this paper studies the influence of personal characteristics of successors on business performance and the intermediary mechanism of entrepreneurial orientation between them.At the same time,the influence of external environment,namely the degree of industry competition,is considered as a moderating variable to explore its role in the relationship between the characteristics of successors and entrepreneurial orientation,hoping to provide a reference for family enterprises to break through the inheritance dilemma and achieve sustainable development.In this paper,225 listed family enterprises listed in Shenzhen and Shanghai during 2010-2019 are selected.SPSS25.0 is used to test the research hypothesis.The results show that:First,successors’ educational level and overseas background have a significant positive impact on enterprise performance,while sibling inheritance conflict has a significant negative impact on enterprise performance.Second,successors’ educational level and overseas background have a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial orientation,while sibling inheritance conflict has a significant negative impact on entrepreneurial orientation.Thirdly,entrepreneurial orientation has a partial mediating effect on the educational level,overseas background,sibling inheritance conflict and firm performance.Fourth,industry competition has a negative moderating effect on the positive relationship between successors’ overseas background and entrepreneurial orientation,and positively moderates the negative effect of sibling inheritance conflict on entrepreneurial orientation,but its moderating effect on the relationship between successor’s education level and entrepreneurial orientation is not confirmed.Through the above research,it can be found that the influence of intergenerational succession of family enterprises on enterprise performance is not negative as some studies believe,but may improve enterprise performance.Moreover,some characteristics of successors of family enterprises have a significant impact on enterprise performance after intergenerational succession.Therefore,for family enterprises,the background characteristics of successors is an important factor to consider the training mode of successors,entrepreneurial orientation is an effective mechanism to transmit these background characteristics,and industry competition pattern is an important variable affecting this mechanism.These conclusions are of great theoretical and practical value for family business to understand the important factors and mechanisms affecting the continuation of family business and to guide family business smoothly through handover.