Clearing the Hurdles for Succession. Female Successors in Family Businesses

Master's Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 3, Management Center Innsbruck (Business & Management), language: English, abstract: Family businesses are important to many economies. They follow their own patterns and have some specialties they need to cope with, such as the succession to the next generation. This step can be seen as one of the most challenging ones for many family businesses and includes finding the right successor. Female successors are still often neglected as such potential successor. The aim of this master thesis is to give a guideline to potential female successors on what factors there might be that influence successful succession in order to make them cope with it accordingly. A qualitative re-search in the form of narrative interviews with six female successor or potential successors was used for the purpose of this study.The most important findings include the emotional attachmentof the family in the business, the timing, and steps of succession as a process, the need for preparation and planning, as well as the requirement to find the right way to deal with such challenges accordingly. In conclusion, female successors should be aware of the mentioned fac-tors and deal with them at the right time and in the right manner to influence their succession positively.