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The purpose of this paper is to investigate several antecedents of succession planning in family firms: founder status, the family chief executive officer (CEO)’s inability to let go and the family CEO’s gender.

This study conducts moderated mediation analysis on a sample of 259 family firms.

The results show that family firms led by founders show lower succession planning levels than family firms led by descendant family CEOs. This effect is mediated by the family CEO’s inability to let go. Furthermore, the influence of the emotion of being unable to let go on succession planning is dependent on the family CEO’s gender. This influence is smaller when the family CEO is female than when the family CEO is male.

The study introduces the family CEO’s inability to let go as a mediator in the founder-succession planning relationship. The results add empirical evidence to the debate about gender influences in family firms. By showing that emotions have a different outcome concerning succession planning depending on the family CEO’s gender, this study enriches gender research. The study also contributes to the family business field by introducing relational theory as a valuable theoretical framework to include gender in succession research.

This paper aims to explore how varsity football athletes and coaches negotiate meanings when faced with the unmet expectations of a new head coach brought into lead a turnaround process. It also aims to pay particular attention to the role of history in this meaning making process.

This paper draws on semi‐structured interviews with players and coaches at two points in time. To preserve the richness of their experiences and illuminate the historical aspects of change, it focuses on the stories of three players and one supporting coach.

Numerous symbols of change emerge that have multiple and contradictory meanings. The meanings around success and failure are renegotiated over time as individuals struggle with the unmet expectations of change. Moreover, individuals are unable to shed the failures of the past and move forward.

Change is a complex and messy process of managing multiple meanings. Understanding change entails more than a snapshot picture of an organization. New leaders have no control over the past, yet they need to be aware of how individuals experienced the past in order to increase the likelihood of success in the present.

Success and failure are experienced as an ongoing process as athletes and coaches experience, reflect on and interact with others. In illuminating the role of history in how change is experienced in the present, the paper demonstrates that the past can serve as both an immobilizing force, as well as a comparative point enabling individuals to rationalize their emotions.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the dynamics of pleasure related to chemsex from the perspective of French gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM). Recognising that participants in chemsex are social actors, the authors diverge from the prominent “pathology paradigm” used in public health.

In-depth interviews were conducted with gay men and other MSM engaging in chemsex via snowball sampling (n=33). The authors explored the definitions of pleasure and the role of stimulants, sexual activity, smartphones and partners in chemsex pleasures.

Chemsex pleasures encompass multiple dimensions that go far beyond bodily pleasures, such as love or romantic relationships, socializing with significant others and sexual discovery through disinhibition. Narratives of pleasure were also, simultaneously, stories of suffering and distress. This dissonance can pose challenges to the participants in chemsex, their entourages and care providers.

Given that the focus of care for gay men and other MSM is on risk behaviors, the findings of this paper help nurture discussions where pleasure is integrated into a new, value-neutral framework of care that incorporates chemsex pleasures.

This study examined the perspectives of those actually participating in chemsex, allowing gay men and other MSM to relate the entirety of their experiences, in which pleasure is often at the forefront, without restriction.

This study investigates how employees' experience of resource-depleting workplace loneliness may steer them away from performance-enhancing work efforts as informed by their propensity to engage in negative work rumination. It also addresses whether and how religiosity might serve as a buffer of this harmful dynamic.

The hypotheses tests rely on three-round survey data collected among employees who work in various organizations in Pakistan – a relevant country context, considering the importance of people's religious faith for their professional functioning and its high-uncertainty avoidance and collectivism, which likely make workplace loneliness a particularly upsetting experience.

An important channel through which a sense of being abandoned at work compromises job performance is that employees cannot “switch off” and stop thinking about work, even after hours. The role of this explanatory mechanism is mitigated, however, when employees can draw from their religious beliefs.

For human resource (HR) managers, this study pinpoints a notable intrusion into the personal realm, namely, repetitive thinking about work-related issues, through which perceptions of work-related loneliness translate into a reluctance to contribute to organizational effectiveness with productive work activities. It also showcases how this translation can be subdued with personal resources that enable employees to contain the hardships they have experienced.

This study helps unpack the connection between workplace loneliness and job performance by detailing the unexplored roles of two important factors (negative work rumination and religiosity) in this connection.

We often hear questions like “What must that leader have been thinking?” “What possessed her to do that?” “That leader needs to give his head a shake!” or “It is so disappointing to see the pain caused by one wrong-headed and self-serving leader!” This chapter describes how leaders may subtly fall into rationalization, self-justification, foolishness, and callous indifference through maleficent internal narratives. How is it that leaders who have found the favor of others in the service of a great cause (i.e., the education of children and youth) find themselves sucked into clearly wrong or unthinkably bad actions? In this chapter, vicious (non-virtuous) thinking, inner political churnings, unconscious reinforcement of systemic evil, and hurtful ways of influencing others are explored, named, and challenged.

Successors' unwillingness to participate in the family business is known to impede intergenerational succession. However, little is known about why those considered eligible, do not choose to become the next chief executive officer (CEO). The authors investigate why some eligible successors withdraw from the succession process while others remain involved. The purpose of this paper is to build theory for which the authors made use of purposive sampling techniques that complied with certain criteria.

The authors use an inductive, exploratory multi-case study design and investigate six Australian food manufacturers.

This paper's analysis reveals that successors' decisions are driven by dimensions: pursued outcome and reciprocity. Eligible successors withdrawing from succession are concerned about personal financial sustainability and the business' growth potential; this is accompanied by negative exchanges with the incumbent.

The authors studied a limited number of organizations and these were mainly managed by owner/founders. In this type of organization, successors have been widely exposed to the business and its struggles from an early age. Differences can be present in businesses managed by later generations whose emotional investment, therefore, socio-emotional needs might be different from the cohort being investigated. Second, the authors' aim in carrying out this study was to build theory for which we made use of purposive sampling techniques that complied with certain criteria. Further studies aiming at generalizable results would shed light on the usefulness of the typology and whether other rules apply to the incumbent–successor relationship while ascertaining how the exchanges contribute to the successor's decision to remain or withdraw from the family business.

This study reveals the crucial nature of the incumbent in the succession process. Their role is not limited to how they interact with the successor but how deeply incumbents manage to understand and monitor the successor's motivations and concerns. Incumbents aiming at retaining eligible successors need to thoroughly understand successors' motivations for agreeing to become the next CEO.

This paper is one of the first to investigate successor withdrawal post training. The authors' methodology includes the responses of non-family senior managers to provide an objective view on the family dynamics.

This paper aims to explore the question of confidence in entrepreneurship, and the impact confidence has on key tasks in the venture development process.

Propositions about the relationship between key elements of confidence (optimism and overconfidence) are made in order to unpack the confidence construct. Simple tests of these propositions are conducted using a small sample of Australian entrepreneurs. Further propositions are made about the impact of optimism and overconfidence on activity across different phases of the new venture development process.

Two elements of confidence, optimism and overconfidence, are distinct in their association with each other and with a third individual difference (regulatory focus). The dual and sometimes opposing impacts of optimism and overconfidence on new venture activity are explored. Optimism and overconfidence are both beneficial when deciding to become an entrepreneur, but overconfidence is harmful when making decisions in response to setbacks.

Conclusions are limited by the sample size and simple analytical techniques. Rather, the impact of the paper is in the implications of the independence of optimism and overconfidence. Future research can explore and test the propositions made about when each is harmful and when beneficial.

For entrepreneurs, it is important to be aware of your optimism and overconfidence in different situations. When optimism is beneficial, use it, but when overconfidence is harmful, mitigate against it by asking the right questions and working with others to check assumptions and strategies.

This paper distinguishes between two individual differences, optimism and overconfidence, that are typically thought to be interdependent and beneficial for entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on reflective practice as a qualitative methodology, and reflection-in-action as a modus operandi to engage with the artistry of cross-language qualitative research.

The author draws on the doctoral research, a cross-language multiple case study aimed at investigating the author’s evolving understanding, as a reflective practitioner, of drama-based pedagogy for teaching Italian as a second language.

A reflective analysis of the author’s tacit decision making during drama improvisation unveiled a clash between covert beliefs and overt attitudes in the author’s practice. In this paper, the author examine this process and highlight the value of translingual writing (writing in two languages) as a method of enquiry that allowed me to become aware of this clash.

A limitation of this research is that the nature of this clash of beliefs is confined to the idiosyncrasy of one practitioner. However, the methodological implications are relevant to cross-language qualitative researchers fluent in two (or more) languages. Frequently, translingual researchers focus all writing efforts in one language only, because of the absence of methodological guidelines bridging cross-language research, reflective practice and translingual studies.

Strategies to investigate awareness of tacit beliefs in educational practice may help other second language/drama reflective practitioners to better understand their knowing in-action.

This paper represents a first step in disseminating knowledge about translingual writing as method, and is of value to all those translingual researchers who are interested in reflective methodologies.