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The aim of this research is to analyze empirical evidence of the effect of governance structure (GS) on perceived success of the succession process. It is also reported that in India, family firms have a more informal organization structure and governance and have an informal and unplanned approach to bringing the successors into family business. Previous studies have reported that GS is an important factor for a successful succession process. This study examines the role of management succession planning as an intervening variable to achieve perceived success of the succession process.

Data have been collected using a questionnaire schedule with 113 respondents who are successors from family business firms in Kerala, India. The study uses snowball sampling technique. Partial least square-structural equation modeling has been used to do data analysis.

The results of the study showed that GS has a significant positive effect on the success of the succession process. GS has a significant positive effect on management succession planning. Management succession planning partially mediates the relationship between GS and perceived success of the succession process.

The results of the study indicate the effect of GS on the relationship between, perceived success of the succession process and management succession planning. The mediating role of management succession planning in the above relationship is also confirmed. Therefore, before starting the succession process a good GS should be put in place for ensuring the success of the succession process. Family firms must implement the succession plan well to make the succession process successful.

The main contribution of the study is to empirically investigate the effect of GS and management succession planning to enhance the success of the succession process.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it is to introduce a knowledge‐based system for planning processes for families of final products, instead of component items, be they parts or assemblies. Second, it is to demonstrate the feasibility and potential of a prototypical system developed for planning processes families for truck families from a multinational company.

The authors first identify the challenges in planning process families, including data and knowledge representation and constraint handling. To accommodate these challenges, the paper adopts the integrated product and process structure (IP²S) and colored timed Petri nets (CTPNs) in the proposed knowledge‐based process family planning system. On top of the IP²S and CTPNs, XML‐based knowledge representation is employed to alleviate the difficulties in modelling complex product and process family data and planning knowledge while enabling information exchange across different operating platforms. In addition, in accordance with the correspondence between PNs and knowledge‐based systems, a mechanism is designed to cope with the generation of production rules, which model constraints.

The proposed system is able to automatically generate production processes for customized products. At a higher level, such production processes provide input (e.g. operations, machines) to downstream activities for planning process details to manufacture component parts or component assemblies.

Traditional trial and error approaches to planning processes limit production performance improvement when companies need to timely produce diverse customized products. Knowledge‐based systems should be developed to help companies better plan production processes based on the available manufacturing resources.

Unlike most reported studies addressing either detailed process planning or assembly planning for component parts or component assemblies, this study tackles process planning for final products, in attempting to maintain production efficiency from a holistic view.

This conceptual, multi-voiced paper aims to collectively explore and theorize family entrepreneuring, which is a research stream dedicated to investigating the emergence and becoming of entrepreneurial phenomena in business families and family firms.

Because of the novelty of this research stream, the authors asked 20 scholars in entrepreneurship and family business to reflect on topics, methods and issues that should be addressed to move this field forward.

Authors highlight key challenges and point to new research directions for understanding family entrepreneuring in relation to issues such as agency, processualism and context.

This study offers a compilation of multiple perspectives and leverage recent developments in the fields of entrepreneurship and family business to advance research on family entrepreneuring.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. In view of the importance of process platform‐based production configuration (PPbPC) in sustaining product family production efficiency, it is to study the underlying logic for configuring production processes for a product family based on a process platform. Second, it is to apply the Petri nets (PNs) techniques to model PPbPC, in attempting to shed light on the underlying logic.

The authors first identify the fundamental issues in PPbPC, including variety handling, process variation accommodation, configuration at different abstraction levels, and constraint satisfaction. To accommodate the corresponding modelling difficulties, the authors develop a formalism of hierarchical colored timed PNs (HCTPNs) based on the principles of hierarchical PNs, timed PNs, and colored PNs. In the formalism, three types of nets together with a system of HCTPNs are defined to address the modelling of PPbPC.

Applying HCTPNs to vibration motors' case has revealed the logic of specifying complete production processes of final products at different levels of abstraction to achieve production configuration. The preliminary results also further demonstrate the feasibility of modelling PPbPC based on HCTPNs.

Traditional approaches to planning production processes for individual products may limit production performance improvement when companies need to timely produce a high variety of customized products. Systematic methods should be developed to plan production processes for product families so as to achieve production efficiency while utilizing the existing manufacturing resources.

By integrating the advantages of existing PN techniques, the HCTPNs formalism is developed to shed light on planning production processes for product families. The resulting production configuration model can facilitate practitioners to achieve production efficiency in producing large numbers of customized products.

Family firms appear to be an attractive topic in a number of research areas. Probably the most important topic is still the succession process combined with possible hurdles and gaps. This paper aims to focus on the special variable of the psychological dimension. It attempts to summarize findings and implications as well as suggestions for where potential research gaps are.

The paper is based on a two‐stage research design. The first step is a literature review. All articles published in the Family Business Review (FBR) between 1997 and 2011 were collected and analysed regarding their topics, findings, and implications. As a second step, this knowledge has been applied to conduct a thorough literature analysis on psychological aspects of succession.

Psychological aspects are often used together with other constructs. The authors strongly recommend handling them as an individualized, highly complex topic, even if social, political, and other aspects are often mixed with psychological aspects and therefore difficult to discuss and separate. A separation of these factors will help researchers present findings in a much clearer way.

The main limitation of the article lies in the methodology itself, as the literature review solely concentrates on empirical papers that exclusively investigate psychological aspects with regard to succession. Nevertheless, the aim was to elaborate a focused psychological field model in terms of succession. Likewise, critical aspects considering the family business system have been taken into consideration. Finally, a literature review is commonly seen as a post‐work “dead body”. However, the implications show a clear, directed focus within family business research. The authors recommend an increase in the number of concisely formulated research questions instead of generic approaches.

Businesses should closely heed three imperative problem areas (individual, interpersonal and organizational) as well as the stage in which conflicts arise (preparation, transfer/takeover, and continuation), if they want to be successful in the succession process.

The paper offers an overview of the limited number of existing articles and their implications that address the psychological aspects of the succession process. Furthermore, the psychological issues identified that cause conflicts during succession are consolidated and categorized.

We investigate the effect of the adoption of formal board structure and board processes on firm performance in Colombian family firms, in a context where firms can choose specific aspects of board structure and processes. We deploy insights from the behavioral governance perspective to develop arguments about how family businesses may choose board elements based on their degree of control over the firm (absolute control or less), and its effect on firm performance.

We use an unbalanced data panel of 404 firm-year observations. The data was obtained from the annual financial and corporate governance reports of 62 Colombian stock-issuing firms for the period 2008–2014 – due to change in regulation, data could not be added beyond 2014. Panel data technique with random effects was used.

The results show that board structure is positively associated with financial performance, however, this relationship is negative in businesses where family has absolute control. We also found that there is a negative association between board processes and performance, but positive association in family-controlled businesses.

Our research contributes to research streams on effects of family control in firm choices and on the interactive effect of governance choices and institutional context and more generally how actors interact (rather than react) with their institutional context.