Corporate Governance and Management Succession in Family Businesses

Family businesses carry the weight of economic wealth creation in most economies. In the U.S. alone, family businesses account for 80 to 90 percent of the 18-million business enterprises in the United States, and 50 percent of the employment and GNP. In many ways, the family business is synonymous with the entrepreneurial organization as many were started as a means to provide for the financial well being of the founder's family. Founders who went on to build family empires started many of today's large corporations (e.g., Anheuser-Busch, Dupont, and Seagrams). Still, we know relatively little about the issues peculiar to a family business, such as the process and impact of succession planning. Yet, no recurring event in the life of the family firm is more critical to survival than the transfer of power from the incumbent to the successor. Organizations are especially susceptible to loss of vision and purpose during periods of CEO transition, as the leaders who helped shape the vision are replaced by others who may not share the same values and abilities. This study addresses the importance of understanding business succession planning by proposing and empirically verifying a model of succession planning and firm effectiveness in the family business. It links aspects of succession planning and successor preparation to the effectiveness of transition and from performance. The model depicts multiple interactive relationships, with emphasis placed not only on the planning and process-specific but also on successor-specific factors that lead to effectiveness.corporate governance, family businesses, management succession, firm performance, successor characteristics

Automated system for the creation and replenishment of users' electronic lexicographical resources

This article proposes a solution to improve the efficiency of automated generation of electronic lexicographical resources based on strongly-structured electronic information arrays processing. The developed automated information system for lexicographical resources creation and replenishment have been described is this article. Several supporting subsystems of developed automated system have been characterized. The effectiveness of the information system has been evaluated

Solar/hydrogen systems assessment. Volume 1: Solar/hydrogen systems for the 1985 - 2000 time frame

Opportunities for commercialization of systems capable of producing hydrogen from solar energy were studied. The hydrogen product costs that might be achieved by the four selected candidate systems was compared with the pricing structure and practices of the commodity gas market. Subsequently, product cost and market price match was noted to exist in the small user sector of the hydrogen marketplace. Barriers to and historical time lags in, commercialization of new technologies are reviewed. Recommendations for development and demonstration programs designed to accelerate the commercialization of the candidate systems are presented

How to ensure partnerships go wrong

This paper is based upon recent academic research on partnership working in a variety of contexts and personal experience of strategic partnerships in the UK. The paper uses examples to draw out some general lessons about when partnerships are likely to succeed and when they may fail

Efficient Memory-Protected Integration of Add-On Software Subsystems in Small Embedded Automotive Applications

Current innovations in the automotive industry evolve mainly in the electronics and software domain. This leads to an increasing integration of additional software subsystems into already existing electronic control units (ECUs) to cope with the raised amount and complexity of present ECUs in modern high-end vehicles. This paper discusses different approaches which are required to integrate such add-on software subsystems in an isolated memory domain, and considers particularly the special needs of small embedded systems—including the limited hardware support. Special focus is brought to the efficient detection of malicious memory accesses, as well as the benefits of a thereupon possible and adaptable failure-handling strategy. All investigations are based on a developed memory-protection framework which has been tailored to the special needs of a sample vehicle dynamics control system. Its usage allows the combination of. integrating additional subsystems without reducing the main application’s availability

A dynamic systems engineering methodology research study. Phase 2: Evaluating methodologies, tools, and techniques for applicability to NASA's systems projects

A study of NASA's Systems Management Policy (SMP) concluded that the primary methodology being used by the Mission Operations and Data Systems Directorate and its subordinate, the Networks Division, is very effective. Still some unmet needs were identified. This study involved evaluating methodologies, tools, and techniques with the potential for resolving the previously identified deficiencies. Six preselected methodologies being used by other organizations with similar development problems were studied. The study revealed a wide range of significant differences in structure. Each system had some strengths but none will satisfy all of the needs of the Networks Division. Areas for improvement of the methodology being used by the Networks Division are listed with recommendations for specific action