Family CEO mentoring and post-CEO succession performance

While extant research has studied extensively the consequences of chief executive officer (CEO) succession, we explore the concept of family CEO mentoring (from a departing family CEO to a younger family leader) as a potential driver of post-succession performance in family firms. Drawing on stewardship theory and using a data set of 1787 Italian firms experiencing a CEO succession over 14 years, we show that family CEO mentoring positively influences post-succession financial performance. We then argue and empirically confirm that the performance benefit of family CEO mentoring is enhanced by the presence of nonfamily members on the board but is dampened by industry turbulence. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for research on CEO mentoring, CEO succession, and family business performance.