From Nurturing the Successor to Attracting New Founders: How Firm Platforms 
Organize a Market for Selling Businesses

Stamm, Isabell

doi:10.1515/joso-2022-0001

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From Nurturing the Successor to Attracting New Founders: How Firm Platforms Organize a Market for Selling Businesses

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Stamm, Isabell
Vermögen und soziale Ungleichheit, MPI for the Study of Societies, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Stamm, I. (2023). From Nurturing the Successor to Attracting New Founders: How Firm Platforms Organize a Market for Selling Businesses. Journal of Organizational Sociology, 1(2), 141-169. doi:10.1515/joso-2022-0001.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000D-5A11-B

Abstract

Firm platforms organize a market for selling Mittelstand firms in Germany. In doing so they face a challenge: to instill a market frame in a segment of the German economy that is known for its family embedding. This study examines the strategies firm platforms use to reframe ownership transfer from a gift passed on within the family to a commodity traded on a market. Building on a content analysis of the seven largest and most innovative firm platforms in Germany, this study reveals how firm platforms argue from within a gift exchange frame and shift its parameters in social, object, and time dimensions. This study makes a more general point by arguing that digital platforms function as cultural trailblazers in marketization. This study contributes to succession, digital platform, and marketization debates.