Samenvatting

This article responds to the call of scholars for more research on psychological phenomena in entrepreneurship and especially business transfers. The complexity represented in business transfers has attracted a substantial interest of a wide variety of disciplines in the last 30 years. Despite this attention failure rates remain constantly high. This might be because the subject is approached with a financial, legal or economic point of view. Recent research suggests that the psychological side of business transfer might account for a large portion for the failure rate. The article proposes to look at the process of business transfer through the eyes of the transition model by Noble and Walker. As the company goes through various stages in its development in its lifecycle, the incumbent follows a similar path. The model suggests 3 stages which the incumbent goes though; from a trigger event into a separation phase, a liminal phase and finally an incorporation phase where psychological benefits can be harvested. Support is explored in the threshold theory where it is assumed psychological costs and income might lead to the respective stages