With the overall aim of highlighting and analyzing the dilemmas of parents and offspring regarding the succession process in family businesses, this exploratory qualitative study was conducted assuming that these dilemmas play a determinant role in the planning (or lack thereof), in the execution and the outcome of the succession process, and in the future of the family business and its chances of continuity. This paper sought to combine the theoretical support offered by the approach applied to family businesses with the ideas of Bauman (2007a; 2007b; 2008) on the liquidity of existence and the empirical field concerning organizations with these characteristics in a specific services segment. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured interviews with 12 individuals (five parents to be succeeded and seven successor-offspring), all of them working in five different small and medium-sized Brazilian family-owned enterprises. Ten major dilemmas were identified, five of which concerned the parents while the other five concerned the offspring appointed by their parents as their successors. Analyzed in light of the related literature, the results indicate conclusively that the parent's dilemmas are primarily tied to the duality of life and death, while the dilemmas of their offspring focus on the basic issue of self-legitimation. Likewise, the researchers found in relation to the main objective of this study that the dilemmas of the parents that are to be succeeded and of the children that are to succeed them can influence and even determine how the succession issue in the family business develops. In closing, the limitations of this research were presented, as well as suggestions for future work on the subject.
business administration; human resources; family business; succession; family enterprise; succession process
