Succession Dynamics

This book presents a rigorous, historically grounded analysis of the mechanisms that sustain brand formation, successor development, and transgenerational entrepreneurship in Japanese long-established family firms. Through an in-depth, multi-method case study of YAMAMOTO-NORITEN—a seven-generation, 175-year-old seaweed company in Nihonbashi—it fills a major gap in family business research, where longitudinal, empirically documented studies of individual firms remain rare.The book contributes three major scholarly advancements. First, it offers a detailed account of how legacy brands emerge as accumulations of intangible assets, socio-emotional wealth, symbolic capital, and embedded family narratives. Second, it advances the concept of successor legitimacy by integrating Weberian traditional authority, Linton’s status theory, and contemporary legitimacy research, arguing that successors must navigate a “constraint–autonomy dilemma.” Third, it proposes a model of the legacy accumulative chain, demonstrating how innovations and inherited resources interact across generations in a long-term, path-dependent process.The work targets practitioners, scholars, and graduate students in family business, entrepreneurship, Japanese management, organizational theory, and socio-economic history. It provides a robust empirical foundation through company documents, genealogies, and extensive oral histories, illustrating how intangible assets and institutional embeddedness shape continuity and competitive advantage. Overall, the book offers a theoretically innovative and empirically rich contribution to global family business scholarship.

Yasuhiro Ochiai is Professor at the School of Management and Informatics, University of Shizuoka.. He holds a doctor of business administration from the Graduate School of Business Administration at Kobe University. Prior to entering academia, he gained professional experience at Daiwa Securities SMBC Co., Ltd. After holding associate professorships at the Japan University of Economics (2014) and the University of Shizuoka (2018), he assumed his current role in 2020.Professor Ochiai’s research explores business succession from a management perspective, with a particular focus on Japanese family enterprises. He has played a significant role in advancing the scholarly and practical understanding of succession dynamics in Japan. He serves as Executive Director of the Japan Society for Business Succession and as Director of the Japan Academy of Family Business. From 2019 to 2023, he was Visiting Scholar at the Research Institute of Capital Formation of the Development Bank of Japan.