eprintid: 32881
rev_number: 11
eprint_status: archive
userid: 5878
dir: disk0/00/03/28/81
datestamp: 2023-02-15 10:58:36
lastmod: 2023-03-14 08:17:41
status_changed: 2023-02-15 10:58:36
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Lenz, Regina
creators_name: Schormüller, Claudia
creators_name: Glückler, Johannes
title: Legitimation strategies in an emerging field: family firm succession consultancy in Germany
subjects: ddc-300
divisions: i-120700
keywords: Bavaria; consulting; family firms; legitimacy; organizational field; succession; Upper Palatinate
note: Dieser Beitrag ist aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich. *** This publication is freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.
abstract: Finding a successor has become a severe challenge for family firms in Germany. As family firms are disproportionately concentrated in rural economies, succession has also become a considerable threat for peripheral regions and their labor markets. It therefore lies in the interest of regional stakeholders to help support family business continuity. One way to do this is by providing consulting services for family entrepreneurs, especially when searching for a family-external successor. Succession consultancy, however is still in its infancy. Applying the framework of the organizational field that centers on the concept of legitimacy, this paper examines the strategies consultants employ in order to get selected by family entrepreneurs in their succession process, as well as consultants’ strategies to match family firms with external successors. Based on expert interviews with succession consultants in the region of Upper Palatinate in Bavaria, we demonstrate the importance of geography and interpersonal linkages in establishing legitimacy in the early stages of field formation, when heterogeneous groups of actors offer their services without set rules or standards. Our content analysis sheds light on the variety of strategies based on trust, networked, and public reputation in order to gain legitimacy as consultants, depending on whether or not they can draw on existing relationships with family firms. We furthermore identify a discrepancy between these legitimation strategies and the actual ways that consultants use to match family firms with external successors. Here, regardless of their previous contact with family firms, geography plays a major role in constraining both consulting and succession: Family firms more readily accept local consultants, and the consultants also preferred to screen succession candidates through their regional networks due to the higher chances of successful succession when finding external successors from within the same region. Conceptually, our analysis contributes to institutional theory by carving out legitimacy-enhancing mechanisms in emerging organizational fields, and by demonstrating the crucial role of geography and interpersonal linkages for succession as well as field formation processes.
date: 2020
publisher: De Gruyter
id_scheme: DOI
id_number: 10.11588/heidok.00032881
official_url: https://doi.org/10.1515/zfw-2019-0019
ppn_swb: 183574236X
own_urn: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-328818
language: eng
bibsort: LENZREGINALEGITIMATI2020
full_text_status: public
publication: Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie
volume: 64
number: 2
place_of_pub: Berlin
pagerange: 58-73
issn: 0044-3751 (Druck-Ausg.); 2365-7693 (Online-Ausg.)
edition: Zweitveröffentlichung
citation:   Lenz, Regina ; Schormüller, Claudia ; Glückler, Johannes  (2020) Legitimation strategies in an emerging field: family firm succession consultancy in Germany.  Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie, 64 (2).  pp. 58-73.  ISSN 0044-3751 (Druck-Ausg.); 2365-7693 (Online-Ausg.)     
document_url: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/32881/1/10.1515_zfw-2019-0019.pdf