Succession Planning: Lessons from a Qualitative Single Case Study of CEO Behaviors Within a Small to Medium Enterprise Hospitality Industry Organization

For hospitality organizations to innovate in every direction and attract, engage, and retain their most potential internal talent, the CEOs of their organizations must prioritize succession planning within their organization’s strategic plans. In small to medium enterprise hospitality organizations, some CEOs overlook succession planning as a strategic imperative. Within the context of SME hospitality organizations, this qualitative method single case study research project focused on answering three questions to illuminate why some CEOs do not prioritize succession planning among the multiplicity of their responsibilities. The first question explored whether there is a need for CEO succession planning. The second question asked what the barriers to CEO succession planning are, if any. Finally, the last question addressed how future CEOs of SME hospitality organizations are being developed, if not through strategic succession planning. Within the study the researcher considered the outcome of linking succession planning to a hospitality organization’s strategic plan as a potential solution to the absence of succession planning in some organizations. Among the findings of this study it is suggested that succession planning should be part of an organization’s strategic plan because that would help to ensure internal potential leaders are developed for the CEO role, leading to organizational stability. The goal of this study was to fill an existing gap in the literature regarding SME CEO behaviors related to succession planning as part of a strategic plan within hospitality organizations and reveal further opportunities for research on this important topic.