Generational Transition of Family-Owned Businesses

The study found that, although the rate of generational transition in family-owned businesses in the United States continues to fall, there are signs that this trend may be reversible. The study also found that the most important factor in a successful generational transition is long-range succession planning. Such planning must deal not only with the selection and training of leaders from the new generation, but also must effectively address important financial and business continuity issues.

One factor that mitigates against successful generational transition even when long-range succession planning is conducted is poor leadership on the part of the present owners of family-owned businesses. While present owners may be good leaders in most respects, they frequently fail to recognize the unique problems associated with succession management.

An important new trend in generational transition in family-owned businesses is the selection of multiple successors who work as management teams in the post-transition lives of family-owned businesses. The team approach hold the

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the concept of power in significantly different ways within organizations may achieve comparable outcomes. Depending upon the character of individual managers the applications of different types of power or a combination of both types of power may be appropriate. It is useful, therefore, to define overt and unobtrusive power. Overt power use "refers to the ability to secure preferred outcomes in the face of competition and conflict among declared opponents." Within organizations, overt power derives from an ability to "control à scarce resources and resource dependencies." Unobtrusive power, by contrast to overt power, "refers to the ability to secure preferred outcomes by preventing conflict from arising." Within organizations, unobtrusive power is "derived hegemonic and symbolic sources which are brought into play to legitimize outcomes à." Critics of the concept of employee empowerment charge that it has been oversold. These critics contend that the proponents of empowerment ignore the political realities of organizational, environments, attempt to change workplace values, and increase workloads. As a consequence, both employees and management become disenchanted with empowerment. Team-Based Organization One
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Approximate Word count = 8759
Approximate Pages = 35 (250 words per page)

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