Succession Planning And Family-Owned Business ContinuityIn The Wa Municipality

The focus of this paper was to determine the extent of succession planning by owners/founders of family businesses and its importance in ensuring the continuity and prosperity of businesses in the Wa Municipality. The design was an exploratory study on the extent to which family-owned businesses (FOBs) appreciate succession planning as an important aspect of business continuity. A sample of 205 was drawn randomly from a population of 440 family businesses in the Municipality. An interview schedule was used to collect and analysed data with descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings indicated that many of the FOBs in the Municipality do not have formal or written succession plans for their businesses, founders /owners of FOBs preferred the appointment of a family member as a successor and the selection and training of a successor is paramount in the succession process.