The Relevance of Knowledge Types and Learning Pathways in Wine Family Business Succession

Aspects of family business succession process are many times neglected during the life of the founder or the generation that must be getting ready for the hand-off. The paper is allowing even to a rude observer to understand the importance, the concepts, the typology and the implications of following a specific learning pathway and choosing a particular category of successor (insider or outsider), starting from situations where inside-family succession is preferable. The objective is twofold: (1) to highlight knowledge types that are easier to be transferred to internal successors, and (2) to identify context factors that facilitate family internal succession. We will demonstrate that the wine industry is an intensive-knowledge industry, needing a constellation of specific vineyard and winery management competences, consequently family members are more suitable successors than external applicants.