Retaining reluctant successors in family firms: The roles of childhood exposure and affective commitment

Dysfunctional family interactions can harm the family system and sabotage a family firm’s succession process; however, some families overcome deleterious experiences and successfully transition their firms to the next generation. This qualitative study investigated how successor commitment is impacted by childhood exposure to the family firm (CEFF), as well as how withdrawal from the process can be overcome by revelatory incidents that rebuild positive emotions, repair the damage of negative behaviors, and rekindle successor engagement. Drawing on the family business succession and commitment literatures, we interviewed 43 successors in 25 multigenerational family firms, examining how their family relationships and significant childhood experiences influenced their commitment development. We extend successor commitment theory by developing a model and six propositions describing how affective commitment impacts a successor’s decision to leave, stay, or re-engage with the firm after negative childhood experiences lead to withdrawal intentions and how incidents in young adulthood can renew a successor’s affective commitment. Based on our findings, we propose that family firms can overcome successor withdrawal if negative behaviors in families do not evolve into dysfunctional family systems.