Skills needed in family businesses – case study Slovenia and Croatia

Abstract

Family businesses make up more than 60% of all companies in Europe. From there, special attention and focus should be raised to such organisations. Especially that is true when talking to younger generations, where identifying main skills for family businesses to survive in the global market is a challenging task. Additional obstacles arise when talking about succession and further development by new generations – successors. Main goal of the research is to analyse skills needed for successful transmission between generations among Slovenian and Croatian family businesses while the purpose of the research is to raise awareness among family businesses in Slovenia and Croatia about the importance of key knowledge and skills for a successful succession transfer. Research addresses the need for knowledge and skills, important for the successful transfer of family businesses between generations. Combination of quantitative and qualitative research strategy with closed type of questions and semi-structured interviews was used as a research model. Main findings indicate that Slovenian family businesses are more open and aware of important knowledge needed for the transfer of family businesses (ex. leadership, innovation, education, etc.). Conducted research is providing a great base for comparison among other EU countries as well as USA or eastern economies. Findings are also usable in possible sociology/psychology insights about the reasons why differences are occurring, but also a potential framework for correlations (more aware economies, better results) and a case study for student courses.