Title: Generational changes in management boards and boards of directors of family companies

Authors: Marek Pawlak

Addresses: Department of Journalism and Management, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland

Abstract: A study was carried out into the composition of management boards and supervisory boards of family joint-stock companies registered in Poland between 2005 and 2020. The results indicate the existence of distinct generations of children, parents and grandparents. Over time, individual groups become older and their numbers fluctuate. On the basis of the obtained results, it can be concluded that there is a phenomenon of transfer of experience, as supervisory boards become an environment where younger family members are prepared to take up responsibilities in management boards. The study employed a graphical method to identify modal values, a cluster analysis, as well as statistical methods. The results obtained with different methods proved very similar.

Keywords: family companies; generations; composition of management and supervisory boards; cluster analysis; multimodal distributions.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAMS.2026.151293

International Journal of Applied Management Science, 2026 Vol.18 No.1, pp.1 - 34

Received: 27 Dec 2023
Accepted: 30 Apr 2024
Published online: 22 Jan 2026 *

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