Family Business Succession in Private Vocational Education Institutions

Abstract

          This article aimed to: 1) identify the excellence factors of family business succession in private vocational education institutions, and 2) confirm these factors. A mixed-method research design integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches was employed. The sample comprised 201 private vocational education institutions under the Association of Private Colleges of Technology and Vocational Education of Thailand under the Patronage of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. The sample size was determined using the Krejcie and Morgan table, and stratified random sampling was applied. Respondents included institution owners, successors, or administrators (n = 201). Research instruments consisted of a semi-structured interview form, a monograph, and an opinionnaire. The quality of the instruments was verified by experts through content validity assessment and revised according to their recommendations before pilot testing. The reliability of the questionnaire was analyzed using Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient, yielding a reliability value of 0.985, indicating that the instruments were appropriate and highly reliable. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and content analysis and synthesis. The findings revealed that: 1. Family business succession comprises three main factors with 56 observed variables: 1) the family dimension (18 variables), focusing on succession planning, preservation of founder values, and flexible family rules; 2) the business management dimension (21 variables), emphasizing professional management and institutional adaptation; and 3) the succession context dimension (17 variables), highlighting successors’ honesty, transparency, humility, sincerity, selflessness, and personnel acceptance. 2. The components were highly consistent with empirical data, with all goodness-of-fit indices meeting the acceptable criteria. The study confirmed that family business succession in private vocational education institutions comprises three dimensions: family, business management, and succession context, encompassing a total of 56 observed variables. The proposed model demonstrated a good fit with the empirical data.