Managing intergenerational challenges: the case of the Lebanese family SMEs businesses

Abstract

The research study consists of approaching strategies and plans that family businesses adopt to ensure their transition success from a generation to another. The literature review reflects a theoretical framework that covers both formal and informal development of family businesses. In other words, in its early ages, the family business is reduced to its nuclear dimension; however, with the effect of intergenerational transitions, an extended family is involved into the company's development and necessitates a more formal structure in order to balance between the business interest and the family one. The methodology relies, first, on a qualitative approach. This method helped to find out the perceptions of family business managers according to the main research statement and contributed to the establishment of the research questionnaire. Thus, a quantitative approach, as a complementary approach, has helped generalising the obtained results from the qualitative investigation.