CHIEFDOMS AND FAMILY FIRM REGIMES:

VARIATIONS ON THE SAME ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEMES

Elizabeth (Beth) D. Rogers, Ph.D.

Rogers Family Foundation

Alan L. Carsrud, Ph.D.

Anderson School at UCLA

Norris F. Krueger, Jr., Ph.D.

Entrepreneurial Strategies

The authors wish to thank Drs. Alfred Osborne, Jr., Karen Stephenson, Max Wortman, Jr., and Marta Vago for their

encouragement concerning this paper.

Rogers, E.D., Carsrud, A.L. & Krueger, N.F. Chiefdoms and family firm regimes: Variations on the same

anthropological themes. Family Business Review, 9(1): 15-27.1996.

CHIEFDOMS AND FAMILY FIRM REGIMES:

VARIATIONS ON THE SAME ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEMES

ABSTRACT

Family owned and managed firms exhibit remarkable parallels to pre-industrial chiefdoms because

the typical economic environment in which they exist limits them to a size and scale equivalent to

that of a chiefdom. Using anthropological research this study inventories all known procedures of

accommodating multiple heirs to the paramountcy of pre-industrial chiefdoms. It uses this exhaustive

inventory to characterize the succession process in modern family owned and managed firms. The

major theoretical concept adopted from anthropology is that of polity, defined as an autonomous

system of institutional finance and organizational support (resource control and governance). Using

terms such as polity helps us to recognize the universality of succession processes. Thus, succession

processes in family firms are less idiosyncratic than we once thought. Thus, we can fruitfully explore

structural similarities between pre-industrial organizations and modern family firms, using the

considerable body of field research literature on chiefdoms (Goody, 1958; Barrett, 1965) which finds

that every scheme to accommodate multiple successors falls into one of two categories: (a) personnel

strategies and (b) asset strategies. A second critical concept is that while it is possible to inventory all

possible outcomes (here, succession strategies) in any dynamic system, no single outcome can be

accurately predicted in advance. The purpose of this paper is to provide an exhaustive inventory of

possible outcomes of the succession process, rather than trying to predict the strategy chosen in a

given case. Rather, the anthropological perspective provides a much-needed, empirically-based,

comprehensive model of succession processes in family firms and permits a more nomothetic

approach to family firm research.

CHIEFDOMS AND FAMILY FIRM REGIMES:

VARIATIONS ON THE SAME ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEMES

INTRODUCTION

Family firms exhibit remarkable parallels to chiefdoms in pre-industrial societies. They both exist in economic

environments that limit them to an equivalent size and scale. Anthropological research seeks to identify

universal patterns from specific observations, rather than emphasizing the idiosyncrasies. This permits an

inventory of all known succession procedures in pre-industrial chiefdoms. We can then use this typology to

characterize the succession process in modern family owned and managed firms. That is, social anthropologists

have observed that succession processes in chiefdoms can be categorized into a relatively small number of

generic succession strategies (e.g., Johnson & Earle, 1988).

This article has three key objectives. The first is to inventory modes of succession strategies that

accommodate multiple successors to high office in tribal chiefdoms. Second, it grounds this inventory in the

proposition that a business venture is a commercial polity similar to pre-industrial governmental entities of a

similar scale. Third, the paper adopts ideas from social anthropology to present these modes of succession as

recurring constraints on succession outcomes in modern closely-held commercial firms, thus offering a much-

needed comprehensive and empirically-derived model of the dynamics of the family firm. For the family firm

practitioner, showing the structural similarity between family firms and pre-industrial chiefdoms opens the

door to understanding the family owned and managed business as a logical outgrowth of the type of historic

affiliation behavior seen in chiefdoms. We can thus clearly analyze family firms using well-documented

anthropological concepts, moving toward a more nomothetic approach to studying family firms (Rogers, 1990).

INTRODUCTION TO SUCCESSION AND INHERITANCE STRATEGIES

To compare chiefdoms and family firms usefully it is necessary to introduce organizationally-neutral

constructs, such as polity, from social anthropology. A polity is a named organization with an autonomous

system of institutional finance, having both resource exchange and governance functions. That is, a polity is in

essence a system to finance the mobilization of resources for desired activities. The term can thus refer to both

self-sufficient hunting and gathering family households as well as to larger-scale groups formed for economic

purposes in industrial societies. The senior officer in a polity is termed the paramount, whether the head of a

chiefdom or the CEO of a closely-held firm, the individual who controls critical resources. The tenure of a

given paramount in a given polity is formally known as a regime. Changes in regimes are termed regime

shifts, thus succession in a family firm entails a regime shift. Regime shifts (successions) are thus necessarily

characterized by shifts in who controls the critical resources. Other useful terms are kinship and legitimacy.

Kinship is a given polity’s definition of who ‘belongs’ inside the family, the degree to which they belong, and

the corresponding privileges and responsibilities. Similarly, legitimacy reflects the polity’s rules for who

‘deserves’ a particular role in that polity (who is entitled to lawful, accepted control over resources).

Using terms such as polity, regime, and paramount allow us to recognize that succession processes

in family firms are less idiosyncratic than we once thought. Rather, succession in a family firm reflects broader

phenomena anchored in human history. With the use of these terms one can turn to the analysis of field

research literature on chiefdoms (Goody, 1958; Barrett, 1965) which finds that every scheme to accommodate

multiple successors falls into one of two categories: (a) personnel strategies and (b) asset strategies. A recent

exhaustive inventory of succession strategies in an industry comprised completely of family firms finds the

same patterns (Rogers, 1990).

In personnel strategies, the various contenders are either eliminated or given various assignments to

lessen competition for a particular office. These distinctions are consistent with Rivers' (1914) view that

inheritance is the transmission of property while succession is the transmission of a particular office.

In asset strategies, polities are restructured and/or contenders are given wealth payments (paid off).

When control of financial resources in the family firm is equated to control of military force in the

pre-industrial setting, the two polities, firms and chiefdoms, appear startlingly similar.

Benedict (1968) asserts that growth in both family and firm are sources of the tensions leading to

succession crises that are equally characteristic of kindred groups. Barring violent regime shifts, aging

necessarily affects the stability of the family firm as it would any group, as the death or retirement of a

paramount necessarily results in a regime shift (Fortes, 1958; Goody, 1958; Yanagisako, 1979; Rogers, 1990).

Further Delineating Succession Strategies. The initial concepts of successor management through

personnel and asset strategies can be distilled further. Personnel strategies include both contenders and shared

appointments. Contenders can be eliminated through tests of competence, legitimacy, combat, or ostracism.

Shared appointment strategies include appointment of a successor during the reign of the original paramount

(CEO or owner), rotation of the office, and a division of labor in which potential successors are given other

jobs. Asset strategies include both restructuring the polity and wealth payments. Alternatives to restructure the

polity include start-ups, acquisitions, and fission and/or sloughing of revenue sources to form stand-alone

polities or organizations. The polity may also choose to pay off one or more contenders. Finally, a polity may

choose to handle succession with a combination of more than one strategy.

Implications of Dynamism: A Caveat. The conceptual approach of summarizing constraints on

succession processes in general is based on techniques employed in mathematical chaos theory. Dynamic

systems generate an inevitable complexity that manifests itself in a finite range of possible outcomes given any

set of initial conditions. Yet, no single outcome to a succession crisis can be accurately predicted far in advance

because of the complexity of the system and outcomes are highly sensitive to even small differences in initial

conditions. Individuals have the freedom to act within the range but not outside the range of constraints

(Crutchfield, et al; 1986).

A finite list of possible succession strategies (as opposed to an infinite number of possibilities)

suggests that we can offer choices of succession strategies to family firms. However, outcomes will be dictated

by initial conditions far more than by outside interventions.

(Please insert Table 1 about here)

AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACH TO FIRM SUCCESSION

Although succession and other processes in chiefdoms have been extensively studied (Goody, 1966),

the role of succession in industrial societies has fallen primarily to family firm and entrepreneurship researchers

from psychology, sociology, banking, law, and accounting (Davis, 1983; Dyer, 1988; Kets de Vries, 1993;

Lansberg, et al., 1988). The family firm remains largely uncharted territory for social anthropologists despite a

vital need to better understand the interactions between work and family (Kanter, 1989). More importantly,

this failure of anthropology to adequately impact the study of family and closely-held firms has deprived those

interested in the phenomena with potentially useful concepts to help understanding. This is quite similar to

anthropology's lack of impact on entrepreneurship (Stewart, 1993).

While fragments of industrial society have been studied, no comprehensive theory-driven vision of the

family firm as a social/economic entity has emerged. Much family firm research focuses on the dynamics of

family relationships, particularly focusing on pathologies. Meanwhile, anthropologists' studies of modern urban

settings have typically examined single factories, neighborhoods, or small towns. A notable exception is

Stewart's dissertation research (1989) on a rapidly growing Canadian entrepreneurial firm. The problem with

most anthropological studies of modern economic processes is that the foci are generally based on geography,

not on kinship or economic groups. Firms embedded within industries are unique to industrial society and are

increasingly less geographically localized because of modern transportation and communication technologies.

Social and cultural embeddedness thus get less consideration.

Anthropologists have been biased by historical trends in methodology that view pre-industrial and

postindustrial societies as two separate universes. The first universe is ‘embedded’ or has an economy built

around social relations while the latter is ‘disembedded’ or solely driven by market-negotiated events (Polanyi,

1944). The reality in family firms today is clearly closer to pre-industrial societies than either modern market-

driven economists or social anthropologists care to admit. Economic sociologists such as Granovetter (1985,

1992) demonstrate that most behavior is deeply embedded in its social context and that interpersonal bonds

make economic institutions socially constructed. Thus, family firms cannot be understood without

understanding social context, including the centrality of the family dimension where interpersonal bonds

simply cannot be ignored. Similarly, research that focuses on family dynamics alone risk ignoring that family

firms are polities.

Alfred Chandler (1977), the business historian, maintains that modern business activity in large

decentralized organizations is carried on by administrative teams of managers. These managers have vested

interests, both obvious and hidden. More important, he shows that legal ownership is generally divorced from

control; managers operate the firm, not the shareholders. Management need not equal ownership. Similarly,

ownership need not equal legitimacy. In family firms, issues of ownership, management, and control are even

more entangled.

Clearly, neither are family business activities mindlessly transacted in the marketplace, but have very

strong intrapersonal and interpersonal attributes. To Chandler, wealth (or resources controlled by social units)

is key to studies of any political economy, a situation especially true in the family firm. Thus changes in the

control of resources (i.e.,succession) is critical to understanding family firms in modern industrial societies.

COMPARING POLITIES

One frequently hears that a firm failed because of financial reasons. While this may certainly be one frequent

cause, the reality is that the polities in any industry reflect the same human processes of aging that affect other

domestic and kinship groups. It is important to note that ‘kinship’ is an style or method of carrying out

transactions and warfare. In today's societies, warfare has generally moved from the battlefield to the

courtroom. At this point it is appropriate to examine personnel and asset management strategies in more detail

(please refer to Table 1). First, personnel strategies subsume two major types of strategy: Elimination of

Contenders and Shared Appointments.

Personnel Strategies: Elimination of Contenders

We can classify strategies for eliminating contenders into four types: (a) tests of competence, (b)

legitimacy, (c) combat, or (d) ostracism.

Competence. Barring cases of extreme mental and physical inadequacy, competence becomes relative

to the scale and specific demands of the office or position. In a medium-scale polity with a relatively stable

revenue base, the paramount must carry some of the leadership burden. Thus, prospective chiefs must prove

themselves or at least make significant efforts to acquire critical skills. For example, in the Polynesian

chiefdoms described by Bell (1932) the chief was expected to fish, be skilled in crafts, maintain prestige

displays, and manage redistribution of resources such as food. In modern family firms we certainly observe

cases of mentally incompetent successors. If a firm survives under new leadership for the better part of a

decade, it is hard to assume incompetence, and in fact most CEO's demonstrate a wide variety of skills.

Competency may also be questioned where potential successors disagree vigorously over the firms' future

strategic direction as in the current battle at Dart Group (Swisher, 1994; Torry, 1994).

In general, achievement-based succession in chiefdoms strongly implies the assumption that kindred

represent a very viable pool from which to take competent heirs. In the family firm this may be increased if

heirs have been general managers, a natural training and recruiting pool for competent successors. One need

only look at century-old family firms in North America such as Levi Strauss, Nordstrom, and Seagram to see

the ability of families to produce sufficiently competent heirs, especially in non-technology based firms. The

same is true in other regions of the world.

Negotiating Legitimacy. An examination of the field research literature on pre-industrial societies

illustrates the slippery and negotiated character of many supposedly ‘sacred’ principles of legitimacy. That is,

legitimacy has both substantive and symbolic aspects. Even ‘divinely’ selected paramounts must live up to

certain obligations to others outside the clan (which may, or may not, include competence). Conquering rulers

such as the Normans (Searles, 1988), depended on local nobles to provide their military organization. Thus,

they were vulnerable to some form of election or consent by the elders of other local kinship groups. In

successions based purely on substantive achievement, a successor may marry one of the previous monarch's

relatives or acquire the paraphernalia of office in order to gain symbolic legitimacy. An example of this is the

Franks who had Pippin. Here was a man without royal relatives, who was "anointed by God" in a ceremony

from the Old Testament revived especially for the occasion (Goody, 1966).

Kinship Issues in Legitimacy: The idiom of how pre-industrial societies conceptualize legitimacy

reflects the interplay of kinship ties and supernatural and religious sanctions, as shown in examples both

historical and current. Most of the contenders for the status of ‘chief’ in the Hawaiian Islands had ties with

many dynastic lines, and genealogies could be easily adjusted to prove membership in the current royal dynasty

(Earle, 1978). If all else failed, the former monarch could be proved a tyrant to justify a return to the ‘rightful’

dynasty. This was done to Richard III by the Tudor propagandists of Henry Vll (Kendall, 1965). The

internecine family struggles in the Dart Group offer a current example where the father went on television to

accuse his son of malfeasance (Swisher, 1994). Recall that, as a rule, kinship does not in and of itself carry

rights to succession or even property. Its role depends on the particular polity. Julius Caesar's biological son did

not inherit Rome. John Paul Getty gave the bulk of his monies not to his children, but to his art foundation,

much to the pleasure of the art world and the citizens of Los Angeles. Also, the nature of ‘kinship’ can vary

between polities (e.g., matriarchal versus patriarchal). As kinship is defined by the polity, a family firm might

re-define ‘kinship’ to include a promising in-law or long-time manager.

Legal Issues in Legitimacy: Legitimacy in the modern family firm takes a much more legalistic form,

but it is often still driven by ancient traditions. For example, males, not females, are still frequently seen as the

preferred legitimate successors. Legitimacy today can be purchased as when general managers are successors

after a buyout. In modern economies, questions of legitimacy have moved primarily to the legal arena and away

from the kinship and supernatural (or religious) arena of pre-industrial settings. Kinship group participation in

family firms is normally underscored by some set of vested ownership rights that can be bought and sold.

These rights also confer authority. The key similarity between the two types of polities is the system of

"legitimizing through ideological or legal claims," or the ‘rights’ to an office. No system works purely on

‘might’ (or even legal ownership, as Chandler noted) in today's industrial societies. Regardless of how ruthless

the takeover, the event still is clothed in legal language that is the legitimacy ceremony of modern society. That

is, legal settings are often designed to convey symbolic legitimacy as well as substantive legitimacy.

Combat. Gluckman (1954) argued that in Basutoland, multiple heirs disperse the rights to office and

paralyze or fragment the state. Combat and eventually reunification by a powerful individual then followed.

Murder to eliminate excess relatives is still endemic to chiefdoms dependent on military force for authority.

Goody (1966) describes Hogan's work on the Cene'l Eoghain, one of the two kinship groups to rule Ireland

between 879 and 1260. Hogan calculated a rate of "dynastic homicide" and found that approximately 46

percent of the men in that dynasty met with violent death, and of these approximately 50 percent died at the

hands of their own kinsmen (Goody, 1966). While not to be condoned, murder as a succession tool occurs

even today in criminal organizations (and elsewhere, at least according to lurid media accounts).

Battles today are often over ‘stock.’ A clear tension exists between the frequent practice of giving

equal shares of stock to all siblings while appointing one, normally the senior male, as president. Combat

related to succession and inheritance in American family firms is now fought largely with battalions of

pin-striped professionals. Battles to the death are now conducted with substitutes where heirs to a company

dispute control using lawyers and accountants as ‘warriors.’ It is not unheard of to see a sibling forced out of a

firm by another sibling after extensive litigation. This was certainly the case in the family control of Campbell

Soup. Most recently, father and son are wrestling for control of the Dart Group, with family members using

fifteen different law firms (Torry, 1994).

Ostracism. Banishing, or ‘firing’ a potential successor was not easily accomplished in the

pre-industrial setting, since surrounding territories were often hostile, and the ‘royal’ identity of the successor

could serve as a rallying point for potential contenders for a throne. For example, William, a son of the Norman

dynasty, was shipped to Sicily to avoid conflict with an elder brother (Searles, 1988). One can see the same

mode of ostracism when relatives vote a founding entrepreneurial CEO out of office, pushing him/her out of

the company. Since kinship alone is not sufficient to establish ownership rights in a firm, heirs could be

excluded from share ownership unless they do undertake legal warfare. Finally, ostracism can lead an heir to

simply choose another career and become irrelevant to the firm.

Personnel Strategies: Shared Appointments

Other personnel strategies include appointing successors before formal regime shifts, rotation of

offices, and division of labor (potential successors are given other jobs). Below is a discussion of each

alternative personnel strategy.

Shared Appointments: Pre-Mortem. Various mechanisms short of outright murder have been tried

to alleviate the problem of too many royal successors. Goody (1966) refers to pre-mortem succession as a

process in which the aging incumbent appoints his own successor, a phenomena repeated today in several

northern European monarchies. Goody equates the resulting leadership situation to dual paramountcies where

the successor assumes some duties of the paramount, such as that between two nephews of the K'Awas lineage

recorded among the Haida at the Kiou village (Stearns, 1984). A less anthropological situation is dramatized by

Shakespeare in King Lear. This strategy may precipitate rather than quell rebellion. For example, Lear divided

his kingdom between two of his daughters, excluding a third. Although a seemingly legitimate and

substantively equitable arrangement, it served to pit his children against one another and cause civil war.

Family firm practitioners can certainly identify with this oft-recurring phenomenon. For example, in modern

family firms a successor may be appointed while the paramount was still serving. The successor then works in

the firm as the heir apparent. This can result in serious family conflict, such as forcing a parent to retire, or

causing unsuccessful siblings to resent, or even sabotage the chosen heir.

Shared Appointments: Rotation. Two types of rotation occur in the ethnographic literature. In the

first, the paramountcy moves between brothers, instead of between sons, giving each member of the dynasty an

opportunity. The current Saudi monarchy operates in this manner. The awkwardness of such arrangements is

apparent when the issue arises of moving the paramountcy to the next generation. Another such arrangement

was documented among the Haida in the Pacific Northwest (Stearns, 1984). The second type of rotation is

through several different lineages. Among the Nupe in western Africa, three clans, the families of Umar,

Masaba, and Usman Zaki, rotated the paramountcy while other lineages were shed (Nadel, 1942). In the

modern American family firm, no equivalent norms exist about rotation between siblings, but it is not unheard

of as in the case of Roy Disney, brother of Walt, at the Disney Company.

Shared Appointments: Division of Labor. An alternative form of accommodating excess successors

is to assign various members of the dynasty to different positions in the polity. Robert, the younger brother of

Richard founder of the Norman dynasty, became the archbishop of Rouen (Searles, 1988). The modern family

or closely-held firm often offers similar jobs. A father is the CEO while the elder son is a manager, the younger

son a salesman, and the daughter, son-in-law and sister all at other jobs.

Asset Management Strategies

Asset strategies can be classified as restructuring or wealth payments. Below is a brief discussion of

each alternative.

New Polities Started, Acquired, Divided or Sloughed. At times, a portion of an existing polity may

be used to form a new polity to give to a dissident successor. Among the Trobriand in the South Pacific

(Malinowski, 1922) and the Haida (Steams, 1984), separate villages were established by collateral branches of

the main chiefs at South Boyowa and Xaina, respectively. William the Conqueror invaded England in part to

extend domains for the younger generation of Normans. Similarly, a previously consolidated entity such as the

Carolingian Empire may be broken up among heirs (Searles, 1988). Similar strategies are used today in buying

and selling firms. A wealthy family may acquired a company for a daughter and son-in-law and transfer part of

their customer base to help two sons establish a new organization. Rather than dissolve or pass on the older

structure, the family may use the connections provided by the older structure to start new ones in areas more

suitable for the heirs, a process occurring today in Hong Kong. Another way to view this is new product line

which can be started to manage non-succeeding (or dissident) members of the organization. We might observe

this where a non-successor has competence, but not legitimacy, or where success demonstrates competence and

thus legitimacy.

Wealth Payments. Capital disbursement may be made to cancel rights in succession. Cases are

documented among pre-industrial settings of royals selling their patrimony. One only need recall the Old

Testament story of Esau selling his birthright. Firth (1936) records such an incident on Tikopia in the Solomon

Islands where a chiefly contender, Taupe, was bought off by being given an orchard in perpetuity. His father

was a high chief, but his mother was from another island, and the local chiefs did not want him as a successor.

In another case, Mauger, one of the Norman heirs, was given a wife with a substantial dowry to step out of the

line of succession (Searles, 1984). In the modern family firm this can be seen when a sibling is bought out

with a payment of land, money, or some other hard asset.

IMPLICATIONS

Now that an exhaustive typology of succession has been described, it is appropriate to look at the

various implications this has on different groups interested in family business. These are the family business

professional, the family firm member, and the academic research community. Succession may be the most

salient phenomenon in a family business, but family business research lacks a comprehensive model of

succession. Too often, research treats succession as essentially idiosyncratic, or at least too complicated to deal

with parsimoniously. Too often it is merely viewed as the conflict of the personal ambition of the entrepreneur

with that of an heir, solved only by legal techniques. Findings from social anthropology firmly contradict this,

offering evidence that there are a finite number of possible strategies for handling succession. As in any

dynamic system, one may not be able to predict which strategy will be chosen, but one can identify the

advantages and disadvantages of each strategy. Finally, there is the obvious implication is that anthropological

concepts offer a comprehensive model of the family firm itself.

For Family Business Professionals. Danco (1984), the well-known family firm consultant, once said

that when dealing with family businesses, he was merely restudying and drawing upon the ancient Greek

tragedies. Social anthropology research suggests that this is more than a clever metaphor. Given a lack of a

coherent model of effective functioning in family firms, it is imperative for those interested in the institution to

have available the perspective of humanity's historical methods for dealing with changes in regimes. It should

be comforting to see that industrial society is an outgrowth of pre-industrial forms. For example, while we (and

lawyers and accountants) can argue, often strenuously, for pre-mortem succession planning, the case of King

Lear suggests that succession planning often has unintended consequences.

For Family Firms. While each succession crisis in a family firm is a unique, and sometimes a painful

situation, there are only a limited number of possible outcomes that can occur; The choice of which end result

is up to the participants involved. Knowledge of those outcome options could help in communicating options

to all concerned, but the pros and cons really depend on the players involved and their own personal ambitions.

For lawyers, accountants, and organizational behaviorists, using historical and anthropological examples could

be useful in reducing the barriers to insights that members of family firms often raise when more immediate,

and personal, events are used in discussion.

For Academic Researchers: Future Directions. The anthropological perspective allows for an

understanding of the universality of human interaction processes. Much research on family firms focuses on an

idiographic approach, often focusing on family dynamics and concepts from family therapy. This reflects the

assumption that family firms are relatively idiosyncratic phenomena. To study family firms from a more

nomothetic approach requires the assumption that critical processes are relatively universal. Anthropological

research on chiefdoms lets us delineate a limited number of relatively universal succession structures and

processes common to all polities across several millennia and across different levels of technological

sophistication. Research in a more nomothetic direction has already proven useful in family business

(McCollom, 1990; Rogers, 1990).

This discussion also illustrates how anthropologists can learn from family business research. One limit

on classical anthropological research is that it underplays the influence of family dynamics. With the modern

family firm, there are an enormous number of potential cases for possible study by social anthropologists.

Anthropology provides the family firm researcher with a comprehensive, yet parsimonious model for

understanding succession. The vast number of organizational units that constitutes the current industrial world

provides researchers with the base of statistical and qualitative data necessary to understand more fully the

patterns of constraints that characterize all social organizations.

We may wish to focus research efforts in directions that bridge the differences between idiographic

and nomothetic approaches. For instance, are specific patterns of family dynamics associated with specific

succession strategies? (With successful succession strategies?) We also know that growing up in a family

business significantly influences beliefs and attitudes toward family business (Krueger, 1993). Are specific

succession strategies associated with prior experiences? (For example, is a specific succession strategy chosen

because it was learned from past successions?)

Finally, the most intriguing research challenge will be to use this typology to characterize future

observations of succession in family firms (and to characterize past observations from the literature and

archival sources).

CONCLUSIONS

This is not merely a list of all possible procedures for accommodating succession in preindustrial chiefdoms.

We wanted to show how these seemingly abstract categories can be used to characterize any succession process

in modern family owned and managed firms in industrial societies. To facilitate this comparison, we introduced

the anthropological concept of polity that defines autonomous groups in terms of institutionalized financial and

organizational support. The intent is to provide the consultant, the academic researcher, and the family firm

member with an exhaustive inventory of possible outcomes of the succession process. This was done not to

predict the outcome in any given case, but to provide a theoretical approach that accurately reflects the chaotic,

yet limited range of alternatives that often characterizes succession in firms. As with any dynamic system,

succession has a finite array of possible outcomes. However, no single outcome can be accurately predicted, we

can only eliminate infeasible alternatives. Only through knowledge of the past can the family firm avoid being

doomed to repeating it. In reality, chiefdoms in tribal Africa and family firms in the United States reflect the

same robust social processes, a universality we can profitably use in research and in practice.

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TABLE 1

SUCCESSION STRATEGIES

PERSONNEL STRATEGIES

Elimination of Contenders

Competency

Negotiated Legitimacy

Combat

Ostracism

Shared Appointments

Pre-mortem arrangements

Rotation of Paramountcy

Division of Labor

ASSET STRATEGIES

Restructuring (New polities started/acquired/divided/sloughed)

Wealth Payments