Lessons from Large Family Firms About Choosing a CEO.

The article looks at research on executive succession practices and outcomes which compared large public companies in which a single family maintains a significant ownership share and a role in management to those with no such family involvement. It notes the research found the family firms performed carried out more successful CEO transitions with better performance afterwards and cited factors including a more proactive approach to the timing of CEO successions. It says the researchers emphasized that the executive successions at smaller family firms do not typically display the patterns they found at the large family-involved firms in the study. INSET: "We Don¿t Want a Long List of Candidates".