Leadership Succession and Sustainability of Small Family Owned Businesses in South East Nigeria

Abstract

Despite the acclaimed contributions of small businesses to growth of various economies, Nigeria inclusive, majority of family-owned businesses are confronted with similar challenge in the area of business continuity. With the dynamic and turbulent nature of Nigeria’s business environment, increasing number of small family businesses operating in Nigeria have either shutdown or stopped operating at the retirement, incapacitation or death of the business proprietors/owners, owing to the absence of a clear succession plan, vision disconnect between the owner and the successor, lack of interest, requisite drive, technical knowledge and capabilities to manage the business prudently. Hence, this study investigates leadership succession and sustainability of small family-owned businesses in Anambra, South East Nigeria. The study employed the survey research design, carried out in Onitsha and Nnewi commercial and industrial hubs of Anambra State. The simple random sampling technique was employed to select sample of 298 registered small business owners. A five-point Likert structured 6-item questionnaire was adopted for data collection. The study employed Pearson Product Moment Correlation to determine the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Also, the Paired Sample t-test was employed to verify the existence of statistical evidence proving that the mean difference between the paired observations in the hypothesis is significantly different from zero. The findings revealed that, mentoring and human capital development has significant influence on sustainability of small family owned businesses. The study therefore recommended that, family businesses owners should identify the successor early enough and adopt mentorship as a process to equipping the successor, who must however willingly show genuine interest and is not coerced into the business, and adequate time should be devoted for training of chosen successors, in order to equip them with relevant skills that will make their businesses survive beyond the present through several generations.

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