Our Research
What we aim to study
Life planning matters for succession
Life is full of milestones—graduating from school, landing your first job, building relationships, and maybe starting your own family. For those growing up in a family business, these moments carry an extra layer: they can influence whether and how you take over the business one day. Through the longitudinal cohort study, our research aims to understand how your personal life plans relate to succession intentions and how families can better support you in finding your role inside or outside the family business.
Fit Between Private Life and Business
Succession planning isn’t just about skills and experience—it’s about fit. Even the best-laid succession plan can fail if it doesn’t align with your life goals. Understanding your ambitions helps us learn how family businesses can thrive while supporting NextGens’ personal journeys. Whether you dream of traveling, starting a family, or pursuing a passion outside the business, our research seeks to find the sweet spot where NextGens’ life plans and roles in the family business intersect.
Family Dynamics and Your Path
Every family is different. Siblings, parental expectations, and the way your family runs its business can all influence your choices. By exploring these dynamics, we hope to show how family relationships and succession intentions interact, and when they can align.
Generational Perspectives and Values
Each generation brings its own values and worldview to the family business. By exploring the life journeys of NextGens, we can understand how these values influence decisions about succession and leadership. These insights are essential for connecting generations, avoiding misunderstandings, and preparing the business for long-term success.
How we conduct the study
This is a 10-year longitudinal cohort study spanning multiple European countries. This long-term approach allows us to understand not just intentions, but the processes and factors that shape real-world outcomes over time.
- Annual surveys track changes in life plans, career intentions, values, and succession preferences.
- We collect both quantitative and qualitative insights to capture individual experiences as well as broader trends.
- By following the same NextGens over time, we can see how their goals, family dynamics, and business decisions evolve.
What we hope to learn
We want to provide actionable insights that benefit both NextGens and the family businesses they may lead. Through this research, we aim to:
- Uncover how NextGens’ personal and career plans influence succession intentions
- Understand the role of family dynamics in career choices and succession intentions
- Identify patterns in generational values and perspectives in family businesses across Europe
- Offer insights that help families align NextGens’ aspirations with business continuity
- Build knowledge to support the development of future family business leaders
Building on a well-established framework
This study doesn’t start from scratch. Our research team, in particular Prof. Reinhard Prügl and his team of the Friedrichshafen Institute for Family Entrepreneurship (FIF) at Zeppelin University at Lake Constance, have already successfully conducted a similar 10-year project on a smaller scale in Germany which has been financially supported by the family-owned EQUA Foundation in Munich. The insights from that study helped us refine our questions and better understand how NextGens think about their life plans and family business roles.
