Academic research

SSE Riga Executive Master Thesis, May 2023

Authors: Ivo Klotiņš and Dainis Skrinda

SSE Riga Bachelor Thesis,

May 2023

Authors: Aiva Juste and Raimonds Gorenko

SSE Riga Bachelor Thesis, 

May 2022

Authors: Elvis Ancāns and Artis Veldre

Family business owners in Latvia are aware of the succession, but do not treat it as a systematic process. They are treating process factors as a succession and encouraging competence for successors, however disregarding other individual factors, as well as relation, financial and context factors. While the lack of knowledge about succession planning calls for education of family business owners, absence of a legal framework for family foundations is preventing succession planning and effective family business succession in Latvia.

This study analyzes the impact of Covid-19 on family firm performance in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. While family firms demonstrate better performance (return on assets) in all three countries, Latvian and Lithuanian family firms perform better during the crisis. The study also finds that 82% of the largest 200 family firms in Latvia are still owned by their founders, indicating that generational ownership change is happening very slowly.

The results show that family firms constitute more than 30% of all the firms (with above 2 MEUR revenues) and they are associated with significantly higher performance (return on assets and return on equity) than non-family firms during the time period 2012-2020.