Business Leader’s Behaviors in the Case of Retirement and Successor’s Acceptance: A Men/Woman Comparative Case Study

The problematic issue of successor‘s acceptance in a family business has not yet reached researchers‘ attention. This comparative case study put the emphasis on how men/women predecessors will bring their business people toward successors‘ acceptance. The results reveal that, when predecessors put their confidence into themselves, they will adopt, in turn, different behavioral strategies than their own. In doing so, the successor‘s acceptance process by company personnel differs depending on the predecessor‘s gender. This study shows the importance to take into account the predecessor‘s gender in future studies on family succession of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).