The three-dimension development model, based on three different and complementary axes: -ownership, family and business/management-allows analyzing and understanding the organizational life cycle and succession process. The challenges and solutions of this process converge to a conjunction of actions, configured as governance. This paper aims to analyze the life cycle and the succession and governance process in the Seculus Group. This family business is an enterprise group in the State of Minas Gerais. They are at the first generation in a transition process to the second generation, being therefore a reliable analyze unit for this study propose. We realized a descriptive and qualitative case study. We collected secondary data from the enterprise and family documents; and primary data through semi-structured interviews with key members of the family and/or of the enterprise. We interviewed members of the owner-family, and also with no-bonds-owner family members, working or not in the enterprise, and other managers without relations to the family. We used the strategy of explanation building for the data analysis. The results showed that the enterprise is in the stage of Sibling Partnership, of Working Together and of Expansion/Formalization. It was acknowledged that the conduction of the succession process occurred along the time in a contingency way. It was not planned. We concluded that the governance was a way to solve real and potential conflicts about succession, especially about professionalization. This study may bring some contribution to the academic, because it associates three themes, all essentials to conduce family enterprises: the family business life cycles, as a management implement; and the succession, needing planning and previous preparation; and the governance, as a way to solve the conflicts inherent to the process. It also consists in an advance, the way it formulates criticism about the model of Gersick et al. (1997), especially on the question of professionalization and governance practices. We conclude, therefore, that the conduction of succession in family businesses involves challenges related to the development of families, enterprises and ownership. Those challenges can be well faced by governance practices, with the formation of structures that make possible owner-family to participate of the solutions.
Family enterprises; Three-dimension developmental model; Life cycle; Succession; Governance
