Towards a Successor Agency Model of Succession in Family Firms: Evidence from a 400-years old Family Firm

Research on family business succession often assumes that incumbents plan and manage a gradual handover, while successors mainly prepare to receive authority. This leaves unclear how successors can lead meaningful change while the older generation is still present. We examine this puzzle through an in-depth case study of Acetaia Giusti, a 400-year-old Italian family firm. Using formal and informal interviews, observations, and archival materials, we trace how the 17th-generation successor built influence and redirected the firm during formal transfer. We find that successor agency is triggered as the successor surfaces and legitimizes new priorities with key stakeholders (goal elicitation) and anchors his owner identity in those priorities (goal-centric self-concept). This groundwork enables a two-phase ownership construction process. In legitimation, the successor gains provisional authority by enacting incumbent-like responsibilities in bounded arenas (role playing) while signaling a distinct direction by articulating forward-looking priorities (projecting new organizational goals). As credibility accumulates, the process shifts to identification, where the successor consolidates authority by reframing what the firm stands for and where it should go (revamping organizational vision) and stabilizes change by linking new priorities to inherited tradition (integrating new and existing goals). The sequence culminates in successor ownership formalization—an accelerated and structured handover of control and authority to the successor. Our model reframes succession as a negotiated build-up of authority and direction, not only a planned transfer of roles.