Identifying Successor Development Practices to Promote Transgenerational Entrepreneurship in Iranian Family Firms

Corporate entrepreneurship is one the key factors for long term success of family firms. Therefore، continuing the entrepreneurial behaviors in the following generations of the family firm، which is called transgenerational entrepreneurship، is of paramount importance. Among different factors، the successor has a key role in the development of entrepreneurship in the firm. So، the family firm mangers are to adopt effective practices to nurture a successor، being competent enough to promote entrepreneurship in the firm. In this research، five Iranian large family firms، being able to promote entrepreneurship in their different generations are studied and their practices for successor development are identified. The results show four main practices: education، working inside or outside the family firm، nurturing in the family، and mentoring. In this paper all these practices are described and their impact on developing the successor is explained. Particularly the third and fourth methods are deeply investigated. Two functions of mentoirng، career and psychological functions، are also well studied.