ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the contributions to theory and practice in family firms. It also discusses the family business succession by enhancing the influence of emotions on the succession planning process, which is a key challenge in family business research. The chapter aims to point out that emotions have a different outcome regarding the succession planning process. It explores succession through the emotions felt by the predecessor when choosing the successor. Emotions are defined by Cosnier as “all the events or states of the affective field characterised by a set of experienced psychics accompanied in varying ways by the intensity and quality of physiological and behavioural manifestations”. Research in the field of neuroscience has confirmed the physiological link between emotion and decision-making. Damasio has shown that individuals cannot make decisions when the areas of their brains associated with emotional processes have been damaged.
