We contrast the performance consequences of intra-family vs. external ownership transfers. Investigating a sample of all private family firms in Sweden that went through ownership transfers during ten years, we find family firms transferred to external owners outperforming those transferred...

In considering firm succession as the acts of both entrepreneurial exit and entry, this paper adds to work that seeks to integrate entrepreneurship and family business research. We provide a comprehensive literature review of succession research over the past 35 years and identify seven...