And Now You Are Heir Apparent! A Conceptual Paper to Explore how the Designation Affects Learning

Abstract

CEO succession is an important event in the life of an organization. It is unavoidable. Around 80% of succession events are relay successions, where a CEO successor is identified a few years before the actual succession event takes place. The success of relay succession has been credited to the learning that an heir apparent acquires during the transition period. However, to my knowledge, none of the CEO succession research examines the learning process of heirs apparent. Studies exploring leaders’ or executives’ learning have not investigated whether their learning is any different due to their designation as heirs apparent or future CEOs. This conceptual paper attempts to fill this gap using a combination of learning and sensemaking perspectives, this paper builds premises proposing that the designation of executives as heirs apparent affects their learning processes by (1) activating a new identity for them, (2) triggering a potential for a future identity, (3) changing their social context, and (4) influencing their enacted environment.