Abstract:
The study assessed the influence of succession planning on business sustainability in family
owned businesses in Uganda basing on a case study of Jesa Farm Diary Limited. It was guided by
three objectives i) To examine how succession timeline influences business sustainability in Jesa
Farm Diary Limited, ii) to examine how succession timeline influences business sustainability in
Jesa Farm Diary Limited, iii) to examine how family agreement plan influences business
sustainability in Jesa Farm Diary Limited.
The study adopted a descriptive research design; the data was categorised under both qualitative
and quantitative approaches. The study population was 150 and a sample size of 109 respondents
of which only 102 participated presenting a response rate of 93.5%. After processing, the cleaned
data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of the SPSS
software version 25.
Results revealed that the most effective contributor to business sustainability is succession timeline
(R Square of 0.553), followed by identification of successor (R Square of 0.340) and the least
contributor is family agreement plan (Adjusted R Square of 0.183). The test also revealed that Jesa
Farm Diary Limited succession planning has a statistically significant positive relationship with
business sustainability since all p values were below the alpha of 0.05 and as such the null
hypothesis was rejected.
In conclusion the study notes that while Jesa Farm Dairy Limited has a clear vision and mission,
areas such as leadership training, succession planning, competitive benefits, and knowledge
transfer show significant gaps. The study also notes that while there are some efforts in place for
identifying and grooming successors at Jesa Farm Dairy Limited, there are significant gaps in areas
such as mentorship, talent assessments.
The study recommends that Jesa Farm Diary Limited should develop and implement a
comprehensive leadership development program that includes structured training, mentorship, and
clear succession planning. It was also suggested that the company should create and formalize a
system for internal promotions that clearly identifies and develops potential successors
