Succession Planning for Sustainable Small and Family Business

Small and family-owned businesses rarely employ first-rate, well-qualified talent in human resources. More typically, business owners must be jacks of all trades and serve as their own accountants, lawyers, business consultants, marketing experts, and HR wizards. Unfortunately, that does not always work well when business owners embark on planning for retirement or business exits. To help business owners avert problems, this book will offer limited advice on the management, tax and financial, legal, and psychological issues that should be considered when planning retirement or other exits from the business. This comprehensive approach is unique when compared to the books, articles, and other literature that currently exists on the market. This book takes on a bold and integrated approach. Relevant research combined with the rich experiences of the authors brings this comprehensive, evidence-based approach to action-based approaches for the reader.

• Deciding What to Do: Life and Career Planning for Small Business Owners and Family Leaders
• Considering Your Choices
• Planning for Succession in Small and Family Business
• Planning the Strategy for Succession
• Recruiting a Successor from Inside, Outside, or Utilizing Other Options for the Organization
• Special Issues in Small and Family Business Succession Planning
• Family-Owned Business Dynamics and Politics
• Questions and Answers about Psychological Issues in Small and Family Business Succession
• Questions and Answers about Legal Issues in Small and Family Business Succession
• Questions and Answers about Tax and Accounting Issues in Small and Family Business Succession
• Questions and Answers about Financial Planning Issues in Small and Family Business Succession
• Questions and Answers about Talent Management Issues in Small and Family Business Succession
• Transitioning the Business and Executing the Plan

So, what is preventing you from starting this effort tomorrow? Small and family businesses are the bedrock of all businesses. More people are employed by small and family-owned businesses than by all multinational companies combined. Yet the research on small and family businesses is bleak: fewer than one-third of small business owners in the United States can afford to retire. Only 40 percent of small businesses have a workable disaster plan in case of the sudden death or disability of the owner, and only 42 percent of small businesses in the United States have a succession plan. Fewer than 11 percent of family-owned businesses make it to the third generation beyond the founder. Lack of succession planning is the second most common reason for small business failure.

• Owners
• Senior Leaders
• Function Professionals of Small and Family Owned Businesses

William J. Rothwell, PhD, DBA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, CPTD Fellow, RODC, FLMI is a Distinguished Professor in the
Workforce Education and Development program in the Department of Learning and Performance Systems at the
Pennsylvania State University, University Park campus.
Work Experience
Dr. Rothwell worked full-time in human resources, training and Organization Development in both government (Illinois Office of Auditor General) and in a multinational company (American Brands, #48 on the Fortune 500 list) from 1979 until he joined Penn State University as a professor to head up a graduate program in Human Resource Development/Organization Development He has been a consultant for over 50 multinational companies. Among his many clients are Motorola University China, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Siemens, Sony, GM Shanghai, Phillips, Erickson, HP, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), the American Red Cross, Care, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Postal Service, and many more. He is President of two consulting firms: (1) Rothwell & Associates, Inc. (a firm that focuses on public speaking online and onsite) and (2) Rothwell & Associates, LLC (a firm that focuses on consulting with an emphasis on succession planning, talent management and related topics). He is also, with his wife, a business owner of The Rothwell Partnership, which controls 10 homes for rent. From 1997 until 2022 he and his wife also owned and operated a personal care
home (Greenhills Village and Assisted Living Residence) for the elderly that was licensed by the State of Pennsylvania for 54 residents and employed 27 full-time and part-time employees.
Education and Professional Certifications 
Dr. Rothwell earned his Bachelor’s degree in English with High Honors and Department Honors from Illinois State University; he earned a Master’s degree and completed all courses for the Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; he earned his Master of Arts in Business Administration (MABA) from Sangamon State University (a university since renamed the University of Illinois at Springfield); he earned his Ph.D. with a specialization in Human Resource Development from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and, in 2022 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) by the Alliance International University in Dutch Curaçao in the Caribbean. He has also earned multiple professional certifications: the Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) from the Human Resource Certification Institute; the Society for Human Resource Management Senior Professional in Human Resources (SHRM-SCP); the Registered Organization Development Consultant (RODC) designation from the International Society for
Organization Development and Change; and the Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD) Fellow (member of the Hall of Fame) from the Association for Talent Development. He is a Fellow of the Life Management Institute (FLMI) designation based on passing 10 graduate courses in the insurance field. (The latter is essentially a Master’s degree in insurance.)
International Work
Dr. Rothwell has been to China 83 times, to Singapore 32 times, and has visited every continent (except Antarctica) to do training, consulting, college teaching, and research. He has chaired 110 Ph.D. committees at Penn State, has served on doctoral committees at foreign universities in England, China, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates, and is still listed as a visiting professor at Nankai University in Tianjin China, a visiting professor at Shanghai JiaoTong University in Shanghai, and a special speaker at Renmin University in Beijing China. (He taught 10 MBA courses at Nankai University and 10 MBA courses at Beijing University.)
Awards
In 2022 Dr. Rothwell was named a Distinguished Professor in the College of Education, was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Organization Development Network, and earned the Global Lifetime Achievement Award by Penn State Global Programs (the university’s highest award for doing work internationally). He received the Distinguished Researcher Award from the College of Education in 2016 and was given the Graduate Faculty Teaching Award in the 2004-2005 academic year. (The teaching award is a single award given to one faculty member on Penn State’s 24 campuses each year.). In 2011 he was given the Association for Talent Development’s Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance Award; in 2016 he received the Best Global Training and Development Leadership Award from the World HRD Congress in India, and in 2014 he was named a Brandlaureate in Malaysia. In 2022 he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by The OD Network; in 2023 he was inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame; in 2024 he was named to Marquis’ Who’s Who in America; and in 2024 he has been notified that he will be given the International Society for Performance Improvement’s (ISPI) Thomas F. Gilbert Distinguished Professional Achievement Award at the 2025
conference. 
Publications and Presentations

Dr. Rothwell has authored, coauthored, edited, or coedited 158 books since 1987 and has delivered over 2,000 professional online and onsite presentations over 30 years in 15 nations. His recent books since 2020 include Succession Planning for Small Business and Family Business, Rethinking Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, High-Performance Coaching for Managers, Organization Development (OD) Interventions: Executing Effective Organizational Change, Virtual Coaching to Improve Group Relationships: Process Consultation Reimagined, Adult Learning Basics 2nd ed., Increasing Learning and Development’s Impact Through Accreditation, The Essential HR Guide for Small Businesses and Startups, and Workforce Development: Guidelines for Community College Professionals, 2nd ed.