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The nexus of aging in family businesses

2019, Journal of Organizational Change Management

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the preferences of parent founders within family businesses in selecting a suitable successor with the increase in life expectancy. Design/methodology/approach The study presents alternative decision-making preference models of a suitable succession for parent founders based on the models of microeconomic theory in the context of family businesses. Findings The theories and models of economics in the current study illustrate that the increase in the life expectancy of the parent founders with their decisions toward the preference of a suitable successor under the age constraint may restrict the sustainability of their family businesses. As a result, the opportunity cost theory appears as to be at the ahead of the other theories in microeconomics in order to support the decision making of parent founders on selecting the suitable successor for the future of the family business. Research limitations/implications The paper illustrate...

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0953-4814.htm The nexus of aging in family businesses The nexus of aging in family businesses Decision-making models on preferring a suitable successor Cagri Bulut Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Business, Yasar University, Izmir, Turkey Received 21 May 2019 Revised 29 June 2019 Accepted 4 July 2019 Serpil Kahraman Department of Economics, Faculty of Business, Yasar University, Izmir, Turkey Emir Ozeren Reha Midilli Foça Faculty of Tourism, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey and Centre for Inclusive and Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CISEI), University of Southampton, Southampton, UK, and Sobia Nasir Department of Business Administration, Graduate School of Social Sciences, Yasar University, Izmir, Turkey Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the preferences of parent founders within family businesses in selecting a suitable successor with the increase in life expectancy. Design/methodology/approach – The study presents alternative decision-making preference models of a suitable succession for parent founders based on the models of microeconomic theory in the context of family businesses. Findings – The theories and models of economics in the current study illustrate that the increase in the life expectancy of the parent founders with their decisions toward the preference of a suitable successor under the age constraint may restrict the sustainability of their family businesses. As a result, the opportunity cost theory appears as to be at the ahead of the other theories in microeconomics in order to support the decision making of parent founders on selecting the suitable successor for the future of the family business. Research limitations/implications – The paper illustrates the models on the preferences of the parent founder for the future of the family businesses with their perception toward the increase in overall life expectancy. The current study is limited to the perspectives of founder entrepreneurs toward an effective succession decision. Future research may consider the perspectives of in-family as well as non-family successors. Originality/value – In the light of alternative preference decision-making models for parent founders for choosing a suitable successor under the age constraint, this study will make a noteworthy contribution to the sustainable growth of their family businesses. The approach of this study through the microeconomics not only methodologically contributes to the body of knowledge in aging and employment in general, but also to the intergenerational relationships of parent founders, especially their succession-related plans at their early stages of career. Keywords Family business, Succession, Aging, Business owners, Preference theory, Decision-making models Paper type Conceptual paper 1. Introduction Succession is one of the most important research areas in the context of strategic decisions (Evert et al., 2016) as family business owners’ decisions have a direct impact on the sustainability of any family business (Schell et al., 2018; Del Giudice et al., 2013). As to the family business survey of PwC (2016), an estimate indicates that only over 30 percent of all Journal of Organizational Change Management © Emerald Publishing Limited 0953-4814 DOI 10.1108/JOCM-05-2019-0140 JOCM family enterprises ownership transfers the business to the successors. Given that, succession, in general, is a dynamic process to transfer the hold of family business economy to a new successor (Yedder, 2018; Sreih et al., 2019). Due to the increase in life span within the millennium, the career expectations of parent entrepreneurs and successors diverge from each other (Zellweger et al., 2011). In contrary to the socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen et al., 2003), the expectations of parent founders toward the business objectives concerning their family businesses do not diminish (Zacher et al., 2012); moreover, the successful aging of parent founders creates an invisible career barrier like a glass ceiling on their successors’ careers objectives for becoming the subsequent CEO of their family businesses. Apart from the developing literature in the family business succession (Evert et al., 2016), especially the decision-making preference model on preferring a suitable successor is one of the neglected areas of interest within both the practice and the literature of family business management that deserves further scholarly inquiry. Thus, the aim of this study is to tailor the decision-making models of microeconomic theory to the parent founders on preferring a suitable successor under the age constraint. Considering the fact that the life expectancy of humanity has never been as high as in millennium, the expectancies and attitudes of parent founders are in change toward both their ongoing business and their successors (Zacher et al., 2012). As to the socioemotional selectivity theory, individuals at their senior ages, alter their personal goals from their professional career to the emotionally meaningful motivators (Carstensen et al., 2003). However, occurrence of a specific goal or a preference controls the time perspective of an individual between the biological and psychological age; thus, the behaviors of older and younger people become identical (Carstensen, 2006). Accordingly, while parent founders grow older, their expectancies from the remaining lifetime converge with their perceived business opportunities over the ongoing family business as similar to their number of business objectives at the younger ages. Either because of their commitments to their occupations (McMullen and Warnick, 2015) and their socioemotional ties in the family business (Zahra, 2003) or because of their remaining business objectives in the family business, the parent founders do not tend to leave their positions or roles. Given the extended career in family businesses of parent founders, both their perceived remaining time and opportunities in the ongoing family business influence their perceptions toward the employability of their successors (Zacher and de Lange, 2011) or selection of a suitable successor as the subsequent CEO. Therefore, the parent founders may keep their succession decision pending based on the employability of a subsequent generation as the new business leader by considering their perceived remaining time in the family business for retirement (Zacher et al., 2012). When the parent founders go on with at their leadership positions or roles, their pending decisions on preferring a suitable successor may create a Prince Charles Syndrome (Keating, 1999). The perceptions of the parent founders on successful aging may eliminate the potentiality of a subsequent successor and may create a candidate pool including a full of the alternative successors. To accomplish the aim of this study is to present alternative preference decision models of a suitable succession for parent founders by borrowing the theories and models of microeconomics in order to sustain the growth of their family businesses. The family business research has a predominant focus on the succession process and/or post-succession performance (i.e. Gilding et al., 2015) by incorporating several theories (i.e. Chrisman et al., 2003) and by utilizing diverse methodological issues and considerations (Brockhaus, 2004; Cisneros et al., 2018). Although there is some body of evidence on the attitudes of parent founders toward the succession in family businesses, such as their commitment to their child successors (McMullen and Warnick, 2015), alternative decision models on preferring a suitable successor with founders’ aging appear to be non-existent in the literature. Hence, a preference model that will guide the parent founders on deciding for a suitable successor under age perception of a parent founder in this study is likely to contribute to the practices as well as the literature of family business management. The departing point of this study is to shed some light on making effective decisions for preferring a suitable succession by considering the business opportunities under the age constraint through microeconomic perspective. Therefore, the current study contributes to the literature on choosing a suitable successor under the age constraint of parent founders through microeconomic theories. The study models the decisional outcomes of parent founders in their family businesses with aging concerns. The interdisciplinary approach of this study through the economics not only methodologically contributes to the body of knowledge in aging and employment in general but also to the intergenerational relationships of parent founders and especially their roles in senior ages. The study is to provide alternative decision-making preference models from the microeconomics viewpoint regarding the business objectives and preferring a suitable successor in the context of family businesses. By adopting the theories and models of economics such as indifference curves, backwardbending supply curve, marginal rate of substitution (MRS) and opportunity cost to family business management, this study theoretically demonstrates the preferences of parent founders about developing more business objectives or selecting a suitable successor under the age constraint by themselves. The preference models in this study elaborates the proximity to a decision of parent founders on developing more business objectives or selecting a suitable successor, when a parent founder is close to the retirement and a long term in retirement from the family business. The indifference curves in this study run the preferences of parent founder between business objectives and suitable successors under the two possible situations. The first situation is when parent founders perfectly substitute preferences for deciding a suitable successor. The latter situation is when their preferences stuck in the middle as in imperfect substitution. Precisely, we address the following research question: RQ1. What are the alternative preference decision models of parent founders for a suitable succession under the age constraint? This study has three sections: Section 1 following the introduction presents the conceptual framework and theoretical background of the study. Section 2 elaborates the microeconomic preferences of parent founders toward the business objectives and suitable successors. The final section concludes the study with implications for the family businesses and offers several directions for future research. 2. Background and literature review Choosing a suitable successor is one of the utmost outcomes of administering complex problems that proceed in family business for its sustainability in the long term. It is, though an essential turning point for family business owners, also a critical research area for either the growth or survival of the family business in long terms. However, the future of the many family businesses is at threaten because of the delays that arise from their wills of developing more numbers of business objectives for their ongoing businesses under their age constraint, in the parent founders decisions on choosing the suitable successors. As to the family business survey of PwC (2016), the report indicates that only over 30 percent of all family enterprises ownership transfers the business to the successors. Given that, the succession, is a dynamic process by means of transferring the hold of the family business economy to a new successor (Yedder, 2018; Sreih et al., 2019) generally. Moreover, the sustainable growth of family businesses is to a large extent depended on the psychological motions of the parent founder toward the business objectives and employability of a suitable successor as the subsequent CEO (Camfield and Franco, 2019). According to the socioemotional selectivity theory, besides senior-aged people are getting wiser and happier, they tend to lower the risks in their both lives and professions, thus, become relatively conservative by aging (Hendricks and The nexus of aging in family businesses JOCM Cutler, 2004). However, the family business literature mainly focuses on the succession process and/or post-succession performance (i.e. Gilding et al., 2015) by integrating miscellaneous theories (i.e. Chrisman et al., 2003) and by using diverse methodologies (Brockhaus, 2004; Cisneros et al., 2018). For example, there is evidence on exploring the succession challenges from a gender perspective (Vera and Dean, 2005; Ferrari, 2019), examining the stakeholder engagement of family businesses (Cennamo et al., 2012; Bozer et al., 2017), predecessors and outcomes toward succession planning (Gilding et al., 2015) or managing the change through conflicts (Classen and Schulte, 2017) in the literature. A number of studies investigate the underpinnings of why founders do not prefer to leave the organization at early senior ages by concentrating on the succession process or the post-succession performance (Cisneros et al., 2018). Previous research also investigates the attitudes and predispositions of family members and founders toward the succession (Camfield and Franco, 2019) such as the emotional commitment of family business owners toward their corporations (McMullen and Warnick, 2015), the strong ties of founders within the family business (Zahra, 2003) or the personal values toward the ongoing family business (Camfield and Franco, 2019). Despite these facts, several suggestions on how to prepare one of the next generations to become the subsequent leader widely exist in the family business studies (Sreih et al., 2019). The specific questions regarding how to make optimal decisions on preferring a suitable successor by considering the life-span perception of the parent founders related to the relationship between their business objectives and their chronological ages still warrant a well-grounded conceptual clarification. Consistent with this view, a comprehensive bibliometric study on the family business succession also posits a research shortage of how the succession decisions evolve in the family businesses (Cisneros et al., 2018). A decision on the employability of a suitable successor for the family business refers to attain and maintain the hiring process of a new CEO either from the family or out of the family (Van Der Heijde and Van Der Heijden, 2006). The parent founders mostly prefer to appoint a new leader within the family based on a few reasons; first, they are well socialized and familiar to the environment, culture, norms and key stakeholders of the business. Second, the inner-family employability preference increases the value of family business by protecting the information held by the members of family (Bjuggren and Sund, 2005). Finally, a successor from the family allows the existing founder to control the financial decisions and to stay involved within the business (DeTienne and Cardon, 2012). In short, the parent founder expects to ensure that personal capabilities and optimistic behavioral approaches of a successor toward the efficiency of business are ready. The employability literature reflects various domains such as, education, human resource development and career psychology (Van Der Heijde and Van Der Heijden, 2006). However, an elaboration on the preferences of parent founders toward business objectives and suitable successors lacks in family business research. 3. Chronological age, suitable successors and business objectives of parent founders The future time perspective of a parent founder refers to a perceived endpoint according to a chronological business tenure (Scheibe et al., 2015) by referring strategic views, administrative approaches and activities related to retirement solutions of founders (Lyu and Huang, 2016). In order to secure the financial comfort of the family in the future and to sustain the profitability of the family business, the founders struggle in making strategic choices on developing more business objectives and on the intergenerational continuity including related financial transitions, a long time before their retirements (Henry et al., 2017). Along with the planning, the succession process appears to be a critical challenge (Dyer and Handler, 1994), deciding for the suitable successor is the most critical concern of founders (De Massis et al., 2008). Since an effective transfer of intangible resources of the family business to a suitable successor lead a family business to the competitive edge (Sreih et al., 2019), an effective succession process implicates the transfer of both the tacit knowledge (Cabrera-Suárez et al., 2001) and the personal networks of parent founders to their suitable successors (Steier, 2001). Although the parent founders provide occupational orientations for all potential successors by letting them familiarize with the processes, they also execute daily practices with their key stakeholders before assigning them formal positions on the organizational chart of the family business. Yet selecting the suitable successor remains critical. The literature pays relatively less attention toward the subjective sense of time that parent founders regard (Liao and Carstensen, 2018), but the remaining business objectives of the parent founders over their family businesses are their another concern regarding their chronological age toward their future time perspective (Cate and John, 2007). The following two graphical models of the study on the “preferences of parent founders” (PFP) are the demonstrations of economics functions that include business objectives, suitable successors, and time perception. Accordingly, PFP ¼ f (CA, BO, SS) is one of the preferences model of parent founders (PFP) pointed out as the function of approximate to the decision of developing more business objectives (BO), a proximity of choosing of suitable successors (SS), and the chronological age (CA). Chronological age is the “sticky variable”; the age is the variable that is sticky to downward. In Figure 1, PFP ¼ f(CA, BO) indicates the negative relation between the chronological age of parent founders and the number of business objectives in their family businesses. If the age of parent founders increases, their number of business objectives decreases which cause the parent founders to focus more on eliminating the successors for a suitable one rather than developing more and more business objectives (mostly they are about to retire). In Figure 2, PFP ¼ f (CA, SS) indicates that the positive relationship between chronological age and number of suitable successors. When the chronological age of parent founder increases, the number of alternative suitable successors increases as well, for example, the next generation, the subsequent generation after the next generation or close relatives that tenure in the family business for a very long time. With the degree of slope of both lines, here the number of new The nexus of aging in family businesses CA BO (–) Q Figure 1. Business objective (BO) curve CA SS (+) Q Figure 2. Suitable successor (SS) curve JOCM business objectives and the number of alternative suitable successors demonstrate the effect of age on proximity to decisions as a constraint. If the degree of the slope increases, the effect of chronological age on the decision of parent founders also increases. 3.1 Equilibrium points of deciding for the suitable successor The parent founders tend to monitor the outcomes of their decisions, the value of the outcomes and all other benefits in terms of their return cost with patience (McConaughy, 1999). The opportunity cost refers to the cost of the second-best alternative. It plays an important role on the decisions of the parent founders along with their chronological age. The opportunity cost helps the psychological self-evaluations of parent founders on the utilization of the limited resources of family business effectively or not in a specific timeline (Astrachan and Kolenko, 1994). In order to demonstrate the trade-off between developing business objectives and selecting a suitable successor for the future of the family business, utilizing the opportunity cost theory is important. Because the theory explicitly illustrates the timing of an effective decision on preferring the suitable successor with the business objectives according to a chronological age. Particularly, the enthusiasm to determine the selection of suitable successors depends on the parent founder’s perceptions toward the future in terms of their personal views, values, objectives and other personality characteristics (Degadt, 2003). Figures 3 and 6 indicate the effect of three different chronological age period of parent founder on their decisions. Figure 3 shows the equilibrium (E) for proximity to decision for selecting the suitable successor; when the parent founder’s chronological age is Cat*, the proximity to decide for developing more business objectives and the proximity to make the decision for a suitable successor become equal under the age constraint. Referring to the socioemotional selectivity theory (English and Carstensen, 2014), the parent founders gradually plan their strategic decisions according to their perception of having a long time in retirement. Contrarily, when the parent founders perceive limited time horizons, they show swift preferences for the exploration to elect a suitable successor within family or among the potential successors (Fung and Carstensen, 2006). The parent founder focuses toward intrinsic goals when they feel close to the retirement mostly because of increasing age. For instance, in Figure 4 when parent founder is at the age CA(t*+n), short term to retirement, parent founders’ proximity to SS is higher than proximity to BO, where AB ¼ SS W BO. In contrast, when the parent founder feels that there is long time to retirement from this position, the incline is more toward the business objectives (Carstensen, 2006). For instance, when the parent founder is at the age CA(t*−n), long term to retirement, the parent founders’ proximity to BO is higher than proximity to SS where AB ¼ BO W SS, in Figure 5. CA SS E CAt * BO Figure 3. Preference curve of a parent founder (PFP) Q Q* The nexus of aging in family businesses CA C D SS CA(t *+n) E CAt * BO Figure 4. PFP curve when close to retirement Q BO Q* SS CA SS E CAt * CA(t *–n) A B BO Q SS Q* BO As to the socioemotional selectivity theory, when the future time perspective of individuals gets shorter, their daily practices and individual expectancies of their professional career replace with the emotionally meaning ones (Carstensen, 2006). As in the millennium, the significant increase in life expectancy with successful aging provides a more meaningful long life. Thus, though individuals chronologically get older, their perceived ages remain young. In contrary, for the founder parents, when their perceptions toward the time change, they tend to prefer developing more business objectives instead of selecting a suitable successor. In Figure 6, if the life expectancy of parent founder increases, due to the increasing chronological age, the proximity to developing more business objectives increases as well (shift from BO to BO1), but the selecting suitable successor remains constant. While the business objectives increases at the age of CAt*, in practice the parent founders tend to keep the decision of choosing a suitable successor. As the E point becomes the new equilibrium point of choosing a suitable successor, the parent founders focus on developing more number of business objectives instead of postponing his decision for selecting a suitable successor. Under this condition CA is the sticky variable. The parent founders get age until the E point to consider choosing a suitable successor for the family business in practice. However, in the flow of life while the parent founders get aged, their successors get aged too that may create problems for the suitable successor. Because, if the suitable successor gets tenure as a partner in the family business or leaves the business based on perceiving a glass ceiling, subsequent generations in the family become the competitors of the visible suitable successor also the number of potential suitable successors which increases the number of potential suitable successors. Figure 5. PFP curve when long time in retirement JOCM CA SS E CAt * BO1 Figure 6. The effect of life expectancy on the preferences of a parent founder BO Q Q* Figure 7 is an adaptation of the backward-bending supply curve analyses of microeconomic theory according to the age of parent entrepreneurs and their business objectives for their family businesses. The graph demonstrates the two phases of an equilibrium point concerning the timing of selecting the suitable successor for parent entrepreneurs to sustain the growth of their family businesses. The first phase demonstrates the income effect (Arrow.1) and the second phase is the substitution effect (Arrow.2). The income effect shows a positive relationship between the age of the founder-entrepreneur and number of business objectives. In Figure 7, the positive relationship exists between the chronological age of the parent entrepreneurs (CA) and the number of business objectives that parent entrepreneurs develop (BO). When CA increases, the number business objectives increase until the point BOE; thus, the positive relationship occurs for the family business until the leader’s age of CAt* that is shown by the direction of Arrow.1. The efforts on developing more numbers of business objectives increase until the equilibrium point of E as it is the intersection of CAt* and BOE. Accordingly, the parent entrepreneurs develop and implement a number of business objectives (BOE) until a certain age because till that certain age (CAt*) they focus on generating more income for their family businesses. The parent entrepreneurs naturally stop developing or implementing new business objectives (BOE); hence, the growth of the family business pauses. At the age of CAt* in Figure 7, the substitution effect arouses for parent entrepreneurs. Because, beginning from the equilibrium point of E, which is shown by the direction of Arrow.2, the number of business objectives that founder entrepreneurs develop starts to decrease. Relying on the increasing age of parent entrepreneurs (the substitutions effect) negatively affect the income of their family businesses. Regarding their perceived life expectancy with successful aging, if they are not able to choose a suitable successor at the E point, they may become very late to sustain and CA 2 E CAt * 1 Figure 7. Backward-blending curve of a parent founder’s preference BO BOE survive their family businesses in long term. Therefore, the point of CAt* is the optimum timing for an effective succession and for the sustainability of the family businesses. As to the socioemotional selectivity theory, while the individuals take more risk and invest in their careers at younger ages, they tend to avoid risks or take lower risks at the senior age (Carstensen, 2006). Accordingly, the parent entrepreneurs move the family business to a certain growth point (along the Arrow.1) and make a sufficient growth for their family business until the age of CAt*. The business objectives of founder entrepreneurs begin to diminish after at a certain age as the point of CAt* in Figure 7. To keep the family business in growth, the founder entrepreneurs need to replace their leading position with a suitable successor at the E point. After the age at the CAt*, a negative relationship occurs between the chronological age and developing or implementing new business objectives. Therefore, the bending point E not just presents the maximum income generation point of the family business with the current parent entrepreneur but also shows the timing of the suitable succession. The sustainable growth of the family business depends on the choices of parent founders’ between developing more business objectives and selecting suitable successors under the age constraint. The nexus of aging in family businesses 3.2 Utility preferences of parent founders The succession process into the family businesses reflects the decision of transferring the ownership of family business to a next generation (Ramadani et al., 2017), which depicts a parent founder’s decision whether to stay at the key position or leave the family business by taking a rational expectancies for the future (DeTienne, 2010). The prior studies emphasize that the decision processes based on different paths for exit plans of parent founder. However, the literature does not provide what the substitutions of a suitable successor are and the related preferences. To elaborate, the section explains preferences of parent founder by using indifference curve analysis. In economics, indifference curves graphically demonstrate a consumer’s preference toward the combinations of two goods giving the equal level of utility to the consumer under the budget constraint, thereby making the consumer indifferent. Here, in this study, we tailored the indifference curve that the parent founder prefers only one option, either business objectives or a suitable successor by comparing the expected utility of the preferences. Figures 8 and 9 both illustrate the preferences of a parent founder regarding suitable successors and business objectives. Each of the indifference curve of a parent founder (ICPF) with numbers shows an alternative decision of a preference between selecting a suitable successor and developing a business objective. Although Figure 8 illustrates the indifference curve of parent founder when these preferences are perfect substitutes, Figure 9 shows the preferences of the parent founder when preferences are imperfectly substitutes. Based on the indifference curve in Figure 8, first, we assume that business objectives say X SS ICPF3 ICPF2 ICPF1 BO ICPF1 ICPF2 ICPF3 Figure 8. ICPF in perfect substitution JOCM (the horizontal axis), the suitable successor, say Y (the vertical axis) are perfectly substitute, and straight lines in between X and Y at a constant rate based on age constraint. In detail, preferences of parent founder are constant, equal to the slope of the lines that are ICPF1, ICPF2 and ICPF3. When the founder values the preference of business objectives, the second-best alternative (a suitable successor) of giving up of the parent founder would be the opportunity cost of this preference. So that both preferences are interchangeable and give the equal level of utility to the parent founder. The slope of the indifference curve is known as the MRS, i.e., MRSx,y ¼ constant gives us the rate that the founder is to give up one preference for another. In general, preferences for the perfect substitutes can be represented by a utility function in the following form: U ¼ f ðx; yÞ and U ðx; yÞ ¼ axþ by here the MRSx:y ¼ a=b: For perfect substitutes, technically MRS ¼ 1 and is not diminishing, it will remain constant. Therefore, ICPF is negatively sloped straight lines, but not convex to the origin. Second, in Figure 9, the standard convex indifference curve graph shows that two preferences are imperfect substitutes. Thus, founder’s preference move from one to another preference (e.g. between ICPF1 and ICPF2) but both preferences are not on the same way as the preference replaces if the founder of family business may consider them as imperfect substitutes. The structure of the founder’s preferences in BO and SS gives the slope of the indifference curves. Accordingly, preferences are not identical but utility to remain constant and the founder tends to replace them, which implies the convexity of the indifference curves, for example, imperfect substitutability. 4. Discussion and conclusion The long-term sustainability of any family business relies on effective succession. Succession occurs in three stages that are “pre-succession,” “succession” and “post-succession.” While the literature extensively focuses on the issues and processes within succession and post-succession stages (Gilding et al., 2015), the decisions of parent founders at pre-succession stage remain relatively uncovered. Based on the socioemotional selectivity theory, the life expectancy of humanity is in a significant increase in the millennium (Carstensen et al., 2003). In line with a rising life expectancy of parent founders, their decisions at the stage of “pre-succession” are relatively extended with their perceived remaining time at their family businesses (Zacher and de Lange, 2011). For parent founders, an equilibrium point on when to make a decision for an effective succession is one of the critical issues for the sustainability of family businesses. Drawing on theories and models from microeconomics (indifference curves, backward-bending supply curve, MRS and opportunity cost), the current study offers valuable insights for parent founders on their preference decisions whether to remain the leader of the family business or to choose a suitable successor. In addressing the research SS ICPF1 Figure 9. ICPF in imperfect substitution ICPF2 BO question of the study, we elaborate on the alternative preference decisions for parent founders including when to decide on choosing a suitable successor under the changing time perspective with six graphical models. The contribution of this study is to put forward alternative preference decision models of a suitable succession for parent founders in facilitating the sustainable growth of family businesses across generations. The current study is limited to the perspectives of parent founders toward an effective succession decision; however, further studies may also elaborate on the preferences of the successors. 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Corresponding author Cagri Bulut can be contacted at: cagri.bulut@yasar.edu.tr For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com The nexus of aging in family businesses