• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.139-159
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• 2023

As the founders of small and medium-sized businesses age, the issue of business succession becomes increasingly important. In this study, we empirically analyzed the impact of various human and institutional factors on corporate succession intentions, including the CEO's competency, the successor's competency, third-party stakeholders, and institutional factors such as legislation, taxation, and trust. We surveyed CEOs who were currently running small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and received a total of 201 valid questionnaires. We then conducted an empirical analysis using the multiple regression analysis method. Our results showed that both the CEO's competency and the successor's competency, which are human factors, had a significant positive impact on corporate succession intention. Institutional factors such as taxation and trust also had a significant positive impact on corporate succession intention. However, third-party stakeholders and legislation did not have a significant effect on corporate succession intention. Among the factors that had a significant impact, the size of the influence was in the order of successor's competency, CEO's competency, taxation, and trust. These research results have both academic and practical implications. By going beyond existing studies that focus solely on human factors, we have revealed that institutional factors such as taxation and trust have a very important impact on corporate succession.