Business Transfers, Family Firms and Entrepreneurship
Routledge Studies in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Series

?Business transfer? refers to the transfer of ownership and leadership from one or more outgoing owner-manager(s) to one or more incoming owner-manager(s). Apart from all the company's material assets, it presupposes that information, relationships, know-how and social capital are also transmitted from one to the other.

While much of the research on entrepreneurship has focused on new business ventures, few studies have considered business transfers as an alternative way of embarking on entrepreneurial activities. Business Transfers, Family Firms and Entrepreneurship provides the international community with a more comprehensive state-of-the-art of business transfer studies, which will enrich readers? understanding. The business transfer is examined through different prisms: family businesses, internal business transfers to employees, external business transfers, and woman in business transfers.

This book deals with business transfer as a whole, following a logic of continuity and sustainability for the transferred firm. It offers a refreshing point of view on business transfers, in terms of both the process and the actors, and from both the seller?s and the buyer?s sides. It presents the research on all types of business transfer including internal and external transfers and will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of entrepreneurship, small business management, family business, and strategic management. It can also be instructive for practitioners and stakeholders involved in a business transfer.

Part 1. Definitions. 1. Business transfer: Historical perspectives, definitions and the transfer process Bérangère Deschamps. 2. Revisiting the entrepreneurial exit decision process: A decision-making model Marie-Josée Drapeau, Maripier Tremblay. Part 2. Family business transfers. 3. Emotions in family business succession Soumaya SFEIR. 4. Family business transfer: A stressful event for successors Florence Guiliani, Luis Cisneros. 5. The making of family entrepreneurs: How heirs become entrepreneurs and take over a family businessPaulette Robic, Dominique Barbelivien, Nicolas Antheaume. 6. Succession and family business in between emotional and financial issues: The role of governance with a two-tier system Céline Barrédy. 7. Succession and strategic renewal in family firms: Insights from a French family firm Didier Chabaud, Mariem Hannachi, Hedi Yezza. Part 3. Internal business transfers to employees. 8. Towards a better understanding of SME employee buyouts Catherine Thévenard-Puthod, Cédric Favre. 9. Is a workers cooperative an effective means for transferring SMEs? Marie-Christine Barbot-Grizzo. Part 4. External business transfer. 10. A research framework for external business transfers of SMEs Bérangère Deschamps, Susanne Durst. 11. The legitimacy of the external successor: Issues and means of acquisition Lyès Mazari, Sandrine Berger-Douce, Bérangère Deschamps. 12. From outsider to insider: Organisational socialisation in takeover situations Sonia Boussaguet. 13. How to effectively support external buyers in a post-business transfer situation? Catherine Thévenard-Puthod. Part 5. Women in business transfers. 14. Family as an institution to investigate the role of women in the transfer of family businesses Paulette Robic. 15. Gender and succession in the family business Christina Constantinidis. 16. Daughters: Invisible heroes of family businesses? Audrey Missonier, Annabelle Jaouen, Béatrice Albert. 17. Female external successors: Difficulties during the business transfer process and types of support required Bérangère Deschamps, Catherine Thévenard-Puthod.

Bérangère Deschamps is a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Grenoble Alps University and Researcher at the CERAG Laboratory, France.

Audrey Missonier is a Professor at Montpellier Business School, France, member of MRM (Research in Management) and of the LabEx Entrepreneurship.

Catherine Thevenard-Puthod is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management in the Savoie Mont-Blanc University and a member of IREGE Research Institute, France.

Paulette Robic works at the Département Gestion des Entreprises et des Administrations, LEMNA, University of Nantes, France.

Dominique Barbelivien is a researcher at IAE Nantes, University of Nantes, France.