From owner's son to distinguished manager: successes and failures in the process of constructing successors' legitimacy in family-owned organizations

Abstract

The issue of succession is theoretically recognized as one of most delicate moments a family-owned company undergoes. Succession as a social process, in which the heir-successor will have to construct his or her legitimacy, has not been closely examined in recent studies in Brazil. This work's objective is to analyze the process of construction of legitimacy by successors in two family-owned organizations in the state of Minas Gerais. It seeks to understand the process through the challenges, difficulties, and conflicts lived by the successors throughout their career in the organization. This study will not completely fill this void, but nevertheless seeks to analyze the complex problematic presented by the process of legitimization from the perspectives of family, management, and property. A qualitative approach was used, operationalized through case studies which allowed for the understanding of dynamic specificities and the process of legitimization in each of the companies studied. The results indicate that the company effectively constitutes a primary instance of socialization, promoting the idea of commitment to the continuity of the family business. In addition, the studied cases demonstrated distinct ways through which this legitimization was processed, reinforcing the idea that this a process of social construction.