Is succession planning a neccessity every small to medium family business should face - Essay Example

In pursue well be the limitation of the research and a summary with recommendations. Berenbein (1990) asserts that it is necessary for each organization to anitcipate its succession plan, and be able to acknowledge its reality. SMEs have ben particularly interested in this area of research, focusing on the ‘heir’ who shall take on the leadership of the enterprise in the next generation. The current results show that there are no significant, drastic changes behind the past and current leadership of Company XY.

The same issues that confront old leadership have remained the same issues for the new leadership. While such a smooth transition has been possible, there were certain issues that surfaced from the qualitative data. Davis (1983) has effective succession is a tricky issue, in lieu of the fact that it requires something more profound than change in structure; instead, it requies change in the norms and values of the organization – on other words, it requires cultural change. One manager of Company XY even commented, “The initial difficulty of senior management to adjust to the new president’s leadership lies in the culture itself.

They have gotten used to the norms of the old president; however, there have been so many changes that speak of new ways of doing things. The new president advocates a new set of norms. That took some time to get used to, especially among us old guards.” Kuratko & Hodgetts (in Kuratko, 1993) has provided a critique of the tactics used to undertake succession planning. Those that were determined encompassed comprehending “the contextual as­pects such as time, type of venture, managerial capabilities, and environ­ment; identifying succession qualities such as technical skills, business knowl­edge, perseverance, etc.

, and carrying out the succession plans which includes the grooming and preparation of a suc­cessor.” (p. 23). Because the