FAMILY BUSINESS SUCCESSION PLANNING AND SURVIVAL: A CASE STUDY OF TOURISM FAMILY BUSINESSES

Abstract

Family business is the ultimate engine of the economic growth of one country. The fact today is that family businesses are high in quantities, and these organizations contribute to provide jobs in fantastic numbers. Ironically, many family businesses failed to survive through generations. Nevertheless, family business succession is very important to be kept in the mind of all family business owners. This research discusses family business succession, focusing on tourism family businesses. The purpose of this research is to examine what constitutes succession planning, entrepreneurial orientation and organizational learning in tourism family business. Being conducted qualitatively, the findings in this research are obtained by three respected tourism family businesses in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Using cross-case analysis, the findings were processed in a detailed manner. The variables in this study are succession planning, entrepreneurial orientation, and organizational learning. They have several dimensions shaping them. Respectively, these dimensions are training, succession management, family involvement; innovation, risk taking, competitive aggressiveness, autonomy, proactiveness; external acquisition of knowledge, internal acquisition of knowledge, knowledge distribution, knowledge interpretation, and organizational memory. The bottom line is that family businesses need to have a succession planning to survive through generations, and it needs to be motored by an ambition, and conducted in a critical way; entrepreneurial orientation is best when it has innovativeness, originality, and risk taking; organizational learning has to be done continuously and implemented effectively.