Sucession process in listed family companies – current status and further research directions

Purpose: The author of this publication tried to verify the advancement of the management and ownership process of succession in family companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). Especially knowing that the first succession process is the most difficult and most of listed family companies should be in period of planning or implementing it. Design/methodology/approach: The presented conclusions from the empirical analyses are to be used to estimate the level of advancement of the succession process in family companies listed on the WSE in accordance with the theoretical basis presenting succession through the prism of the process. Findings: The verification of the research projects showed that the vast majority of family companies listed on the WSE have not completed the succession process. Companies that have completed the management succession are rare, however no company has been identified that has completed the succession of ownership. Additionally, a quite significant level of generality was indicated in relation to the presented research work in the indicated area. Research limitations/implications: The presented research results are based on different definitions of family companies, which results in a different number of entities covered by the empirical analysis and makes it difficult to draw overall conclusions. Despite that none of the presented research results verified the announcement of the succession plan in the corporate documents. It should also be noted that all the presented results of the conducted empirical analyzes focused on the verification of the intra-family succession. Practical implications: Referring to the presented data it can be noticed that despite the passage of time, there is no significant progress in the succession process in family companies listed on the WSE. The people holding management control and ownership are still senior males. Therefore these data seem to be alarming. Originality/value: To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first scientific study presenting in one place the aggregated results of research which show the level of advancement of the succession process in family companies listed on the WSE from 2017 to 2024, taking into account the theoretical foundations presenting succession through the prism of the process. Keywords: family companies, succession process, Warsaw Stock Exchange, management, ownership. Category of the paper: Conceptual paper.