Perceived Parental Care and Next-Generation Family Members’ Succession Intentions: The Sequential-Mediating Role of General Self-Efficacy and Perceived Person-Job Fit

Abstract

Whereas the existing literature on the relationship between parental behavior and family business succession mainly focuses on parental behavior in the business domain, we highlight the importance of parental behavior in the family domain. Integrating attachment theory, the family business succession literature, and person-job fit literature, our study proposes a theoretical framework hypothesizing that general self-efficacy and perceived person-job fit mediate the association between perceived parental care (an underrepresented family-domain-specific parental behavior) and next-generation family members’ succession intentions. This framework is tested by data from two surveys and further verified by qualitative interviews of next-generation family members. Multivariate analysis results suggest that next-generation family members’ general self-efficacy and perceived person-job fit played a sequential-mediating role in the relationship between perceived parental care and next-generation family members’ succession intentions. Our interviews not only confirm these results but also reveal new insights, particularly into the specific Chinese context in the study of family business succession.

The Intersection of Economic, Social, and Political Forces: Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Family Businesses in China

“…Based on this distinction, they developed a typology of family business (Figure 4), and used examples in contexts largely influenced by the Chinese culture to illustrate how this typology helps us better understand family businesses' strategic decisions and organizational practices with respect to corporate governance, social responsibility, conflict solution, etc. This theoretical analysis is also related to the empirical studies in this special issue (e.g., He & Liu, 2022;Zhu & Zhou, 2022), suggesting that the typology may help future studies extend these empirical studies with a more refined theoretical distinction of SEW. Conversely, the empirical findings of papers in this special issue could inform future theoretical work with regard to how to incorporate broader institutional forces (e.g., political forces in the Chinese context) into the development of theoretical frameworks.…”

“…Zhu and Kang (2022) analyze the association between social logics (reflected in co-governance) and innovation outcomes, one of the most important topics in economic development. Zhu and Zhou (2022), from a micro angle, analyzed the intersection of parental care, a major form of social fabrics, and succession intention, which may considerably influence the organization and performance of family businesses. The studies by Lu et al (2022) and He and Liu (2022) more explicitly analyzed the intersection of all three forces (economic force, social force, and political force).…”

“…The authors in this special issue have acknowledged the limitations of their studies and discussed the avenues for future research. For instance, Zhu and Zhou (2022) note the value of longitudinal research design (also see He & Liu (2022); Lu et al (2022); and Zhu & Kang (2022)) as well as the boundary conditions of the attachment theory. Lei et al (2022) highlight the use of CEO speeches, and incorporation of cultural values for advancing the inquiry into configurations of strategic schemas.…”

“…He and Liu (2022) addresses the tension between family control and state control; an extension of their analysis could be to examine the conflict between political intervention and other organizational mechanisms of family businesses. In light of the two studies about succession (Zhu & Zhou (2022); Zhu & Kang (2022)), could political intervention shape the governance mechanisms of family businesses, and/or the succession intention of family members? Will the tensions uncovered by these studies influence the mentality of the executives of the hidden champion companies (Lei et al 2022) with respect to their strategic planning, and the mentality of their successors with regard to their succession intention?…”

“…Moving further down to a more micro level, in ‘Perceived Parental Care and Next-Generation Family Members’ Succession Intentions: The Sequential-Mediating Role of General Self-Efficacy and Perceived Person-Job Fit’, Zhu and Zhou (2022) propose a theoretical framework on how general self-efficacy and perceived person-job fit mediate the association between perceived parental care and next-generation family members’ succession intention. A novel insight from this study is that the authors connected parental behavior in the family domain with a long-standing topic in family business research – succession intention, whereas existing studies focus mainly on parental behaviors in the business domain.…”