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This study investigates the impact of various desired attributes of succession candidates on family firm incumbent's succession intention for candidate nomination. Examining personal, relational, and processual configurations of succession candidates, we draw on survey responses from 714 family firm owner-managers. Our findings reveal that a candidate's commitment, moral character, and conformity with the incumbent's procedural visions of the succession process significantly increase the likelihood of being nominated as a successor. Our results additionally indicate that the presence of either a family or non-family candidate could amplify the impact of particular successor attributes on the incumbent's succession preferences. Notably, the presence of family candidates emphasizes the importance of a high-quality moral character, while the effect of high procedural conformity is accentuated when considering only non-family successors. This research contributes to the understanding of incumbents' decision-making in successor selection, shedding light on how individual attributes of successors shape nomination intentions. The study concludes by suggesting potential avenues for future research in this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing and keeping a community motivated is critical for success, particularly in self-hosted crowdfunding. Existing research has identified social capital as an important driver of such endeavors. However, the process of how social capital can be developed, managed, and targeted towards a common goal in digital settings is mostly unknown. Applying social exchange theory and a mixed-methods approach, we leverage a large dataset of one of the world's most-funded crowdfunding projects - Star Citizen - to zoom in on the process of social capital development as a success factor. We depict how repeated social exchange and reciprocity norms foster the emergence of a cohesive and supportive community from a crowd of strangers. Moreover, we explain how this is used by Start Citizen within five themes of a novel and IS-enabled managerial technique focusing on dreams. Our insights generalize to contexts beyond crowdfunding that require the engagement of crowds for joint value creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study shows that pursuit of goals associated with sovereignty (i.e. independent and sustainable power over the firm) is a pivotal antecedent of the link between stakeholder orientation and family involvement. We argue that this is due to organizational legitimacy concerns and family-firm identity fit arising from sovereignty pursuit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of a commitment theoretical perspective, we explain how childhood exposure to the family firm (CEFF) impacts shareholders' affective commitment (AC) to the firm in later life. After we demonstrate how this AC mediates the relationship between shareholders' transgenerational orientation (TGO) and CEFF, we investigate the two factors on which this mediation relationship is contingent: shareholders' non-manager status and material expectations from the firm. By utilizing a unique sample of 217 family firm shareholders from 174 family firms and a conditional process modelling analysis, we demonstrate that the AC mediates the relationship between CEFF and TGO. Taking into account the different manifestations of AC, this mediation is however only there for non-managing shareholders and gets weaker when shareholders have high material expectations from their firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research shows that learning performance enhancing stewardship behavior in family firms is frequently achieved through the experiences gained inside the firm prior to succession. However, upper echelons research on managerial decision making shows that this experience inside the family firm may lead to cognitive biases which decrease firm performance. This study addresses these two opposing views via using a sample of 804 German family firms. Our findings reveal that the detrimental effects of cognitive biases arising from pre-succession firm experience have overall a negative impact on post-succession family firm performance. However, this relationship is moderated by different individual and firm level factors. In particular, our results show a u-shaped impact for a non-family successor and a successor with academic education. Furthermore, the overall negative effect of pre-succession firm experience is aggravated for firms introducing product innovations and firms operating in dynamic high R&D intensive industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turnaround performance of corporations remains a specific discipline, an arcane field with many unanswered questions. In this research, we clear some of the smoke by elucidating how identity of those at the helm of the firm shapes turnaround strategy and performance. We contribute a dynamic model of identity, which relates identity to changing social contexts while firms evolve. Using this framework, we explain unique crisis behavior and performance of family firms as compared to non-family firms, singling out entrepreneurial and p(m)atriarchal identities, in a panel of S&P 1500 firms for the years 1996 to 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite advancements in the literature on CEO overconfidence, empirical evidence of performance effects of this cognitive bias remains scarce. Our contribution in this context is twofold. We first analyze the psychological and cognitive role of overconfidence theoretically, showing that the biases at work might lead to positive and negative effects in a turnaround situation. In particular, when realignment is needed, CEO overconfidence might hinder or facilitate necessary turnaround responses, depending on whether the incumbent remains in charge or is replaced. The second contribution is empirical. Our analyses covering a sample of 245 large and public troubled U.S. firms reveal evidence that incumbent CEO overconfidence will have a negative effect on turnaround performance, which seems to be particularly the case for powerful incumbents. Correspondingly, we find a positive effect of replacing high-discretion, overconfident incumbents. Contrary to overconfidence in incumbent CEOs, however, the cognitive bias of overconfident successor CEOs induces positive performance effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing a unique data set on CEO successions, we analyze the enterprise performance implications prolonged predecessor CEO activity subsequent to a CEO succession. Drawing on agency theory and upper echelon theory, we find that whether a positive or negative performance is observed is highly context specific. Using 2SLS-IV regressions, we find that incumbent CEO retention is positively related to performance for successors with low human capital, but turns negative with increased successor human capital. We find that CEO retention is linked to the organizational life cycle: is particularly positively related with performance in younger firms, while this positive relation vanishes with increasing firm age. We observe that both effects are amplified by the degree of post-succession influence of the preceding CEO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continued post-succession engagement of CEO predecessors is a common phenomenon in family firm successions. The literature describes successions as an evolutionary process where the old executive phases out and his successor phases in. However, research on the exact circumstances under which a predecessor remains active subsequent to a CEO succession is relatively uncharted territory. By analyzing empirical evidence from a unique data set on 807 German family firm successions, this article analyzes what drives continued predecessor involvement. Drawing on (behavioral) agency theory and the resource based view, we cast light on this phenomenon three perspectives: human capital, ownership transition, and predecessor preferences. Our data reveals that two thirds of all predecessors stay active in the post-succession phase. Furthermore, 55.3% keep ownership shares. We find that the likelihood of predecessor activity is increased by family succession, nepotistic preferences, and tacit knowledge, but reduced by the successor's human capital, successor's ownership, and corporate age. Our contribution is a closer look into the mechanics and context factors that characterize the handover-phase, which is sometimes referred to as the "succession dance". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The empirical literature considering effects of CEO succession on post-succession performance in family firms highlights inferior performance of family successors. By viewing successions as ruled signaling contests, we argue a family succession is not detrimental per se. Instead, we theorize concentrated ownership structures induce cases where contest governing principals pursue private benefits by imposing contest constraining rules limiting the contests' selectivity in family firms, which leads to lower human capital of selected successors. We empirically control for these underlying contest (selection stage) constraints, show their negative relation to performance, and empirically highlight advantageous aspects of well-chosen and capable family successors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Devising a unique data set we analyze corporate changes and enterprise performance during CEO successions in family firms. 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 is subject to the economic contingency and is highest in CEO successions in turnaround situations. We find that the sum of managerial actions is positively related to enterprise performance. Our interpretation is that improvement potentials accumulated in pre-succession periods due to stale-in-the-saddle effects and the icarus paradox. In particular reviews of existing supplier relations, the product portfolio, and the compensation scheme were found to be significantly positively related to enhanced performance. (JEL: G30, G34, L25, L26, M10) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]