Management Issues in the Family-Owned Businesses From Romanian Publishing Industry During Succession Process

This paper proposes a discussion on the management practices and management conflicts identified in family-owned businesses, active in the Romanian book publishing industry for about two decades - in order to be old enough to reach their lifecycle's growth or maturity stage (hence the management practices to be identified). As the selected companies are of similar age and size, facing the situation of transferring the company management to their successors, the authors' focus is, specifically, on the management conflicts that have emerged during this succession process (hence the management conflicts which possibly emerge during this process). The research methodology includes both secondary research (literature survey) and primary research (interviews with executives of the selected companies). A set of 17 companies from the target group answered and accepted to be interviewed. The merit of this study is the specific investigation of a set of companies of similar age and size, active in a single industry from Romania, facing similar issue of succession - revealing their management practices as well as possible correlation between management level and intensity of management conflict. The implications are of interest for theorists - as academics and researchers - as well as for practitioners - as founding entrepreneurs facing current or potential situation of transferring the management of the business to their heirs. The lessons learnt from the cases analysed are actually useful for all managerial levels, and applicable not only in the book publishing industry.