Samenvatting

Different types of strategic renewal by the successor are identified: organizational change, innovation, combined actions and no action. The main assumption is that renewal after succession improves SME post-transfer performance compared to no actions taken.
Also successor’s timing of the takeover is observed, looking at
the economic conditions in the year of ownership transfer: decline, average or growing conditions. The hypotheses are tested on a random stratified sample of 333 Dutch firms. Univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) and complementary T-tests show that organizational change, product/market innovation and combined actions all increase post-transfer performance compared to no renewal. Strategic renewal pays off in any economic period, but mostly so in periods of economic decline. The control variable firm size is a significant predictor: the smaller the firm the better the
post-transfer performance.