Knowledge transfer in family business successions : Implications of knowledge types and transaction atmospheres

Purpose – Knowledge often is the fundament for strategic competitive advantage. Thus, it is highly relevant to understand better how knowledge is transferred from one generation to the next in family businesses. The purpose of this paper is to link the competitive advantage realisation in family businesses to the success of transferring strategically valuable knowledge in different business environments to the next generation. Design/methodology/approach – Building on the contingency model of family business succession (Royer et al. , 2008) knowledge transfer in family businesses from different cultures is investigated in this paper. From a resource-oriented and transaction cost inspired perspective two family businesses with a similar industry background from China and Europe are compared regarding knowledge transfer in the context of family firm succession taking into account the respective transaction atmosphere. Findings – Different successions for two long-lived family firms are illustrated in a systematic fashion: based on the theoretical elements suggested both cases are described to get insights into the usefulness of the theoretical reasoning developed. On the basis of these, the cases are compared with each other and conclusions for both cases are drawn. Implications for theory and practice as well as avenues for future research are sketched. Originality/value – The focus of the current study is to gain more insight into long-lived family businesses by comparing two cases over a period of more than 200 years with regard to strategically relevant resources as well as the underlying transaction atmospheres. Implications for family firms depending on the resource types and transaction atmosphere are discussed.