When the Senior Leaves and the Junior Takes over. Preparing Employees for Succession in a Family Business

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1, Management Center Innsbruck (Business & Management), language: English, abstract: Succession to the next generation is a widely discussed topic connected to family businesses. Thus, planning for this event, while also considering the employees of the business can be considered to be very important. This bachelor thesis, therefore, aims at giving a guideline on what actions incumbents and successor of a family business should take in order to prepare their employees for succession. Firstly, a comprehensive literature review highlights several important topics connected to the succession within a family business. The significance of the incumbent and successor, as well as of the employees of a family business are also elaborated in order to highlight the relevance of these topics. Furthermore, succession within the family business is then connected to various steps and theoretical models. Moreover, a qualitative research approach in the form of expert interviews, combined with a case example of a family business are used in order to identify relevant information connected to the topic.