Succession and Retirement Planning : Integrated Strategy for Family Business Owners’ in India

This study investigates the relationship between succession planning and retirement planning in family owned businesses in India. Data was collected from 252 small and medium sized family businesses in India with help of a self administered structured questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in LISREL (8.70) was done to check the validity of the scale. Results of the study highlight that succession planning in Indian family businesses is typically an unplanned affair, resulting into a flawed and unsuccessful leadership transition which in-turn creates various factors which contribute towards the failure of the business verticals. The findings of the study highlight that succession planning program is positively and strongly correlated to retirement planning program, indicating that the strategy planning and implementation for the two needed an integrated approach. The limited time and resources available to small and medium sized businesses the current study identifies 3 variables out of 6 variables of retirement planning which could be traded off in favor off to improve the probability of a successful succession planning in a family business. The logistic regression model will help the family business owner/ managers, advisors, consultants and/or researchers in developing a integrated and proactive succession and retirement planning. The research contributes to the growing body of knowledge establishing links between succession planning and retirement planning