Family businesses make up more than 60% of all companies in Europe. From there, special attention and focus should be raised to such organisations. Especially that is true when talking to younger generations, where iden-tifying main skills for family businesses to survive in the global market is a challenging task. Additional obstacles arise when talking about succession and further development by new generations – successors. Main goal of the research is to analyse skills needed for successful transmission between generations among Slovenian and Croatian family busi-nesses while the purpose of the research is to raise awareness among family businesses in Slovenia and Croatia about the importance of key knowledge and skills for a successful succession transfer. Research addresses the need for knowl-edge and skills, important for the successful transfer of family businesses between generations. Combination of quan-titative and qualitative research strategy with closed type of questions and semi-structured interviews was used as a research model. Main findings indicate that Slovenian family businesses are more open and aware of important knowl-edge needed for the transfer of family businesses (ex. leadership, innovation, education, etc.). Conducted research is providing a great base for comparison among other EU countries as well as USA or eastern economies. Findings are also usable in possible sociology/psychology insights about the reasons why differences are occurring, but also a poten-tial framework for correlations (more aware economies, better results) and a case study for student courses.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/bm.2022.760