"Heroes of the Green Room - Post-Succession Restructuring and Corporate Performance in Family Firms" by Jan-Philipp Ahrens and Michael Woywode invited for first presentation in Germany at the Warburg mansion in Hamburg, September 2nd-4th 2014.
The 4th HIF-AIAS is an annual conference of family firm researcher from the USA, Scandinavia, UK, France and other Central-European countries. The conference includes a meet the editors workshop for publishing in the Family Business Review, Journal of Family Business Strategy or Journal of Family Business Management. The Hamburg Institute of Family Owned Business will also host the International Family Entreprise Research Conference (IFERA) in 2015.
The article Jan-Philipp and Michael analyzes corporate changes and enterprise performance during CEO successions in family firms. Its key findings are that high human capital successors implement more changes when compared to low human capital successors. In addition, an enterprise external origin of the successor and a male gender are positively linked to the amount of changes. Furthermore, the amount of observed changes seems to be subject to the economic contingency and is highest in CEO successions in turnaround situations.
Jan-Philipp and Michael find that the sum of managerial actions is positively related to enterprise performance. The interpretation of the authors is that improvement potentials accumulated in pre-succession periods due to "stale-in-the-saddle effects" and the "icarus paradox" (Danny Miller) which can in a succession be salvaged by adaptive corporate changes. In particular reviews of existing supplier relations, the product portfolio, and the compensation scheme were found to be significantly positively related to enhanced performance.
The article is part of a tripple award winning dissertation on family business management supervised by Prof. Dr. Michael Woywode (EURAM Best Paper 2013, FERC Best Paper 2014, FFI Best Unpublished Paper 2014). For further information, it is referred to:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Philipp_Ahrens
