DECISION-MAKING DURING THE BUSINESS ACQUISITION PROCESS

The process of taking over a business in the agricultural sector is a team process in which, in addition to the transferor and transferee, the partner(s) and non-acquiring family and advisors also play an important role. It is a multi-year process in which decisions have to be made on complex issues. In this paper, we investigate how the decision-making processes in business takeovers in the agricultural sector take place and how the choices and decisions are influenced by habits, norms, values and relationships, among other things. We focus on all actors within the process, such as the transferor, transferee, non-acquiring family members and the informal- and formal advisors. Each actor has questions about the individual role in the collective dream of the family business, which can also form the most important dilemmas. This is where issues such as loss, grant, trust and loss aversion play a part1. What is going on within family businesses often remains a black box. Research mainly focuses on input and output variables, which means that it remains unknown how things work internally within the family business, at the kitchen table (Strike, 2018).2 The literature on family businesses also pays little attention to the individual. This is in contrast to psychology. In this paper, we zoom in on the black box. How does the process work at the kitchen table? What is the role of all family members, how and what are they influenced by? How are the decisions made? How do the decision-making and influencing processes work and how do individual family members influence each other and the advice? Our research shows that when family relationships are good, there is a better chance that the socialemotional aspects of the business succession are not a bottleneck for a successful business transfer. Solutions can often be found for the financial, tax and legal aspects, if the social-emotional aspects are good.