Beyond Inheritance: Why Second-Generation Business Owners in Ibadan Intentionally Avoid Taking Over Family Enterprises

Family business succession has historically been framed as a managerial challenge associated with inadequate planning, poor governance structures, and founder dependency. However, emerging patterns among contemporary family enterprises suggest a different phenomenon: intentional succession refusal. Across many developing economies, particularly in urban commercial centres, second generation family members increasingly choose professional careers, migration opportunities, entrepreneurial independence, or alternative lifestyles instead of inheriting established family businesses. Despite the economic and social implications of this shift, limited empirical attention has been given to understanding why successors deliberately decline business continuity.
This study examined the drivers of intentional non succession among second generation business owners in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The study investigated how identity formation, occupational prestige, emotional association with family enterprises, perceived quality of life, and opportunity exposure influence willingness to assume intergenerational business leadership.
The study adopted a mixed methods sequential explanatory design combining structured surveys and semi structured interviews. Quantitative components were designed around successor intention measurement and business continuity variables, while qualitative inquiry explored personal narratives behind succession decisions. Unlike existing studies that position succession failure as an organizational deficiency, this study introduces intentional successor disengagement as an independent behavioural construct. The study proposes that succession refusal represents not simply abandonment of family legacy but a strategic repositioning of economic identity among younger generations.
The findings are expected to contribute to family business literature, entrepreneurship studies, and policy discussions concerning SME sustainability in Nigeria by reframing succession as a negotiated social process rather than a predetermined family obligation.

Family business succession, intergenerational transition, successor refusal, business continuity, identity formation, Ibadan, Nigeria.

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