Bérangère Deschamps

Unexpected Succession: when Children Return to Take over the Family Business

This research explores family succession in which the successors were unexpected. We present six cases studies of children who initially pursued careers outside the family firm but who later decided to return and successfully take over the small family business. Our outcomes explain why they decided to return, the conditions that they set for succeeding their fathers, and the way they approached the management of the family firm. We show that the success they experienced in their professional careers far from the family business positioned them as legitimate leaders. They made a deliberate personal choice to succeed, negotiating the conditions, and this put them on the same level as their predecessors. These successors act as entrepreneurs, they are proactive, take risks, detect new business opportunities and do not hesitate to innovate. The changes that they implement are possible thanks to the support of their predecessors who avoids the destabilization of the organization.

Project Management: Learning by Violating Principles

The chapter explores project management in action in a large public research organisation – NLAT – which decided to change its internal organisation from team- to project-based organisation a few years ago. Because they focus on the realisation of a particular set of tasks for a specific client, project management practices are oriented towards optimising the process of providing clients with answers and solutions. Based on a systematic and comparative analysis of eight NLAT projects, the chapter reports technological success as project achievements, but at the same time the systematic violation of project management principles. Three elements have been identified as enhancing learning, cumulated knowledge and competencies: low project core staffing levels, which lead to the circulation of engineers and researchers around different projects; the building and managing of thematic projects and the encouragement of ‘bricolage’ as a project management style.