Taking Charge: A Configurational Perspective on Post-Succession Change in Family Firms

How new family CEOs use the structural setup they initially find to foster post-succession change in their family firms remains a theoretical and practical puzzle. Building on strategic change and family succession insights, we draw upon 74 interviews from 43 intra-family CEO successions to employ a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. We reveal three change-enabling solutions (authority, empowerment, and alignment) and develop a model of how new family CEOs navigate different structural setups. We add configurational insights to strategic change research in entrepreneurial organizations such as family firms, extend knowledge on new CEO power, and provide contingency factors to the role of new CEO distance.