Successors’ Characteristics, Preparation, Innovation, and Firm Performance: Taiwan and Japan

Recent research has revisited business succession. Although important issues have been discussed from time to time, no consensus on any particular pattern of succession has emerged. Lacking a body of empirical findings to draw upon, discussions of business succession are often based on limited qualitative case studies and findings vary widely among researchers. In this research, we focus on both theoretical explanations and data promotion, and draw the following conclusions. First, there are some differences in the corporate culture and business philosophy between Taiwanese and Japanese enterprises, and the training of successors is also different. Second, the number of female successors has been increasing in both Taiwan and Japan, while in Taiwan female successors have become even more open and innovative than their male counterparts. Third, successors in Taiwan and Japan make various kinds of preparations. The successors are expected to start from the front-line to win the loyalty of employees and managers, to keep in touch with front-line employees, to learn the enterprise’s operating mode, and to think about a future development strategy. Fourth, the grown-up environment of the successor also plays an important role and has a great influence on the successor. Last, but not least, many well-known disputes have occurred in the enterprise succession process both in Taiwan and Japan, and the support provided by the previous generation and the “veterans” will make the succession process go smoothly.