Small and family business (SIMA)

Transgenerational succession in long standing family firms: the “Huey, Dewey and Louie” pattern

Elisa Conz, Giovanna Magnani

The aim of this “work in progress” is to analyse the transgenerational succession of a century old family firm from an entrepreneurial perspective, through an inductive single case study of the luxury textile company Reda 1865. We explore transgenerational entrepreneurship in what we call the “Huey, Dewey and Louie” succession pattern of the Botto Poala family: from incumbents – the uncles – to successors – the cousins. In doing so, we uncover a succession pattern characterised by an “uncle-nephew” mentoring relationship – instead of the traditional parent-child one and contribute to the family business literature on succession and transgenerational entrepreneurship by showing how this pattern ensures conflict management and nurtures transgenerational entrepreneurship enabling continuity and growth of the firm over time.

#family relationships #mentoring #opportunities #succession #transgenerational entrepreneurship