Succession Planning and Capital Structure of Family-Owned Businesses in the UAE

Abstract:

This short paper presents the preliminary results of a study aiming to examine how effectively the UAE family-owned businesses plan and manage the succession of their historic founders. In addition to analysing the transfer of knowledge and skills from the incumbent manager-owner to the new generation, we also examine the major factors affecting the decision of current and future capital structure of the company. For this purpose we plan to perform several case studies of family-owned businesses established in the UAE.