Succession is one of the most studied aspects of family businesses. However, although it is estimated that women own more than 33% of such organizations, to our knowledge, few studies focus on succession in them. Our objective is to explore and understand the process of succession in family‐owned businesses run by women. This paper presents the results of a case study of four women who own and run family businesses in the manufacturing sector and who have shared the management of their organizations with their successors for at least three years.

The last two steps in the succession process—the joint management and withdrawal phases—differ from preceding phases in that they mark the successor's official entry into the family business as future head and the gradual retirement of the predecessor. Alone at the helm until that point, predecessors are faced with an important period of transition in their life where their role as leader is replaced by other roles that have not yet been clearly defined in the existing literature. Using a case study research strategy, this article presents a typology of predecessor roles during and after instatement of the successor from five small and medium‐sized family businesses that have successfully completed their first generational transfer.

CONTEXT. In countries with a low incidence of tuberculosis (TB), screening programs targeting recent immigrants from TB-endemic countries have been shown to be effective in further reducing TB incidence; however, evaluative data on some aspects of these programs remain sparse.OBJECTIVE. We sought to retrospectively evaluate a school-based screening program targeting children at high risk for TB infection in Montreal, Canada, as well as subsequently investigate family and household associates of the schoolchildren with latent TB infection (LTBI), based on adherence to LTBI therapy and costbenefit analysis.DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS. Newly arrived immigrant children (aged 4 -18 years) in selected schools were screened for LTBI by using the tuberculin skin test (TST). The TST was defined as positive at an induration of Ն10 mm. Each child who tested positive on the TST was referred for medical evaluation. Family and household associates of the TST-positive child also were screened for LTBI. Classroom attendance sheets and medical charts were reviewed for 16 elementary and secondary schools that comprised the school-screening program of the Montreal Children's Hospital from 1998 to 2003. Medical charts of the child associates (Ͻ18 years old) who were screened were reviewed also.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES. The main outcome measures were TST-positivity rate, rate of adherence to LTBI therapy, estimation of factors associated with adherence, and net cost/benefit of the school-screening and associate-investigation programs, both respectively and as a combined program, compared with the cost of passive treatment of TB disease.RESULTS. Of 2524 immigrant children screened, 542 (21%) were TST-positive. Of 342 children started on therapy, 316 (92%) demonstrated adequate adherence. The only predictor of adherence among the schoolchildren was having Ն2 family members brought in for TB screening (adjusted odds ratio: 2.0; 95% confidence interval: 1.3-3.3). There were 599 associates investigated from the 484 TST-positive schoolchildren seen at the TB clinic. Of 555 associates with TST results, 211 (38%) were found to be TST-positive. Of 136 TST-positive child associates, 131 were seen at the Montreal Children's Hospital TB clinic and had their chart reviewed. Of these, 108 (82%) were started on LTBI therapy, and 78 (79%) of 99 of those children with information complied adequately with their therapy. We found net benefits from both school-based screening and associate investigation, both as stand-alone programs and as 1 coordinated, targeted TB-screening program.CONCLUSION. We demonstrated the effectiveness, including cost-effectiveness, of a targeted, school-based screening program in a low-burden country and the extra benefit given by adding associates to such a program. IMMIGRANTS AND FOREIGN-BORN Canadians account for more than half of all active tuberculosis (TB) cases in Canada, 1 and in Montreal their overall risk for developing active disease is 10 times higher than the nonforeign-born population (37.5 and 3.3 c...

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