Purpose
The aim of this research is to analyze empirical evidence of the effect of governance structure (GS) on perceived success of the succession process. It is also reported that in India, family ...firms have a more informal organization structure and governance and have an informal and unplanned approach to bringing the successors into family business. Previous studies have reported that GS is an important factor for a successful succession process. This study examines the role of management succession planning as an intervening variable to achieve perceived success of the succession process.
Design/methodology/approach
Data have been collected using a questionnaire schedule with 113 respondents who are successors from family business firms in Kerala, India. The study uses snowball sampling technique. Partial least square-structural equation modeling has been used to do data analysis.
Findings
The results of the study showed that GS has a significant positive effect on the success of the succession process. GS has a significant positive effect on management succession planning. Management succession planning partially mediates the relationship between GS and perceived success of the succession process.
Research limitations/implications
The results of the study indicate the effect of GS on the relationship between, perceived success of the succession process and management succession planning. The mediating role of management succession planning in the above relationship is also confirmed. Therefore, before starting the succession process a good GS should be put in place for ensuring the success of the succession process. Family firms must implement the succession plan well to make the succession process successful.
Originality/value
The main contribution of the study is to empirically investigate the effect of GS and management succession planning to enhance the success of the succession process.
Family business researchers have devoted substantial attention to comparing family firms with nonfamily firms. Many of these comparisons rely on dichotomous variables, which implicitly treat family ...firms as homogeneous entities. However, recent studies have started to use moderators and mediators as well as continuous measures of family involvement in recognition of the heterogeneity of family firms. The articles and commentaries in this special issue contribute to a better understanding of that heterogeneity by examining how vision and goals, as well as the discretion engendered by family control, influence the innovation, internationalization, succession, professionalization, and proactive stakeholder engagement of family enterprises.
I use data from chief executive officer (CEO) successions to examine the impact of inherited control on firms' performance. I find that firms where incoming CEOs are related to the departing CEO, to ...a founder, or to a large shareholder by either blood or marriage underperform in terms of operating profitability and market-to-book ratios, relative to firms that promote unrelated CEOs. Consistent with wasteful nepotism, lower performance is prominent in firms that appoint family CEOs who did not attend "selective" undergraduate institutions. Overall, the evidence indicates that nepotism hurts performance by limiting the scope of labor market competition.
•Dissolved organic matter characteristics linked to bacterial community succession.•Bacterial community was an important driver of TN removal rates.•Enrichment of copiotroph microbes in N-cycle ...pathways promoted TN removal.•The increase in local carbon decomposition depressed TN removal.
Woodchip bioreactors are an eco-friendly technology for removing nitrogen (N) pollution. However, there needs to be more clarity regarding the dissolved organic matter (DOM) characteristics and bacterial community succession mechanisms and their association with the N removal performance of bioreactors. The laboratory woodchip bioreactors were continuously operated for 360 days under three influent N level treatments, and the results showed that the average removal rate of TN was 45.80 g N/(m3·day) when the influent N level was 100 mg N/L, which was better than 10 mg N/L and 50 mg N/L. Dynamic succession of bacterial communities in response to influent N levels and DOM characteristics was an important driver of TN removal rates. Medium to high N levels enriched a copiotroph bacterial module (Module 1) detected by network analysis, including Phenylobacterium, Xanthobacteraceae, Burkholderiaceae, Pseudomonas, and Magnetospirillaceae, carrying N-cycle related genes for denitrification and ammonia assimilation by the rapid consumption of DOM. Such a process can increase carbon limitation to stimulate local organic carbon decomposition to enrich oligotrophs with fewer N-cycle potentials (Module 2). Together, this study reveals that the compositional change of DOM and bacterial community succession are closely related to N removal performance, providing an ecological basis for developing techniques for N-rich effluent treatment.
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We develop and test a novel theory about strategic noise with regard to CEO appointments. Strategic noise is an anticipatory and preemptive form of impression management. At the time it announces a ...new CEO, a board of directors seeks to manage stakeholder impressions by simultaneously releasing confounding information about other significant events. Several CEO and firm characteristics affect the likelihood that this will happen. Strategic noise is most likely when long-term CEOs have a wide pay gap between other top managers at high stock price performance firms, and when a new CEO does not have previous CEO experience or comes from a less well-regarded firm. Results showing that CEO succession announcements are noisier than they would be by chance have some interesting implications for impression management theory, traditional event study methodology, and managerial and public policy. Interviews with public firm directors on CEO succession provide additional validity for the strategic noise construct and help us to articulate key elements of the theory.
Abstract
Applying the doctrine of donatio mortis causa is relevant yet risky. This article takes a deep dive into the risks associated with deathbed gifts and the reasons for their continued ...relevance in English and Welsh law.
Summary
Plants often associate with specialized decomposer communities that increase plant litter breakdown, a phenomenon that is known as the ‘home‐field advantage’ (HFA). Although the concept of ...HFA has long considered only the role of the soil microbial community, explicit consideration of the role of the microbial community on the foliage before litter fall (i.e. the phyllosphere community) may help us to better understand HFA. We investigated the occurrence of HFA in the presence vs absence of phyllosphere communities and found that HFA effects were smaller when phyllosphere communities were removed. We propose that priority effects and interactions between phyllosphere and soil organisms can help explain the positive effects of the phyllosphere at home, and suggest a path forward for further investigation.
Increased frequency and new types of disturbances caused by global change calls for deepened insights into possible alterations of successional pathways. Despite current interest in disturbance ...interactions there is a striking lack of studies focusing on the implication of decreasing times between disturbances. We surveyed forest-floor vegetation (vascular plants and bryophytes) in a Pinus sylvestris–dominated, even-aged production forest landscape, unique because of the presence of stands under a precisely dated disturbance interval gradient, ranging from 0 to 123 yr between clearcutting and a subsequent megafire. Despite a dominance of early-successional species in all burned stands 5 yr after fire, progression of succession was linked to time since the preceding clearcutting disturbance. This was most clearly seen in increased frequency with time since clearcutting of the dominant, late-successional dwarf shrub Vaccinium myrtillus, with surviving rhizomes as an important mechanism for postfire recovery. Our results demonstrate the role of legacy species as significant drivers of succession. We conclude that the starting point for succession is modulated by disturbance interval, so that shortened intervals risk reducing development towards late-successional stages. We suggest that a decrease in long successional sequences caused by more frequent disturbances may represent a general pattern, relevant also for other forest types and ecosystems.
Fire ants (Solenopsis spp.) have increasingly been reported from carrion in the southeastern United States and are now a part of the normal succession community. There have been previous observations ...of these ants altering carrion and preying on other carrion-attendant fauna; however, the overall effects of these activities on carrion decomposition rates, community composition, and blow fly larval development are poorly understood. Alteration of these ecological processes by fire ants could affect the forensic interpretation of entomological data. We conducted a study in Mississippi and Florida whereby portions of the succession fauna were excluded from access to pig carrion to study the relative effects of fire ants and blow flies on carrion decomposition and succession: a control with all fauna having access, a second treatment where fire ants and other geophilic taxa were excluded, and a third treatment in which blow flies and other large organisms were excluded. Fire ants inflicted lesions in the carrion, buried portions that touched the ground, and preyed on some members of the succession fauna. Their exclusion did not affect carrion decomposition rates that were measured but slightly affected the overall carrion community, and strongly affected the oviposition and development of blow flies. Despite the presence of fire ants early in the control, blow flies were eventually able to overcome predation of eggs and larvae, continue colonization, and complete development; however, the delay in the colonization of blow flies on carrion could affect the determination of postmortem intervals when development rates of blow flies are considered in the calculation.
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