Abstract:
Founder-CEOÔs are highly influential in the growth of their businesses which operate in increasingly complex and turbulent environments. It is key for the businessesÔ survival that the Founder is adaptive and flexible in coping with changes in the external environment. Typically, Founder-CEOÔs bring certain knowledge and behaviours into the business, which may be unsuitable for the developing business context.
The literature shows a significant relationship between unlearning and change. Unlearning can facilitate the discarding of attachments to old knowledge and outdated behaviours. The literature, however, does not extensively discuss Founder-CEOs attachments and how they are unlearned. This study fills this gap in literature through the use of qualitative, exploratory research methods to gain deeper insights into the unlearning of unfavourable attachments of Founder-CEOÔs. A total of 15 semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with Founder-CEOÔs of businesses from 14 different industries.
The key findings confirmed that Founder-CEOÔs are unfavourably attached to various knowledge structures, behaviours, attitudes, beliefs and skills. Certain external events transpire that force the Founder to unlearn these attachments during different stages of their businesses lifecycle. Letting go of a deeply entrenched attachment has an emotional impact on the Founder-CEO, as they find it difficult to let go of their preferred practises. However, the Founder-CEOÔs propensity for growth outweighs these emotions.
This study provides two major contributions towards the literature. Firstly, the findings provided the necessary insights to make adjustments to Rautenbach, Sutherland, & Scheepers (2015) original process model of unlearning an attachment for the context of Founder-CEOs. Secondly, and most importantly, a model for the Founder-CEO Unlearning Stages for Business Growth emerged from the findings. This model provides a means for the early identification of an unfavourable attachment through the processes of pre-unlearning, unlearning and post-unlearning. This will help the business transition to the next stage of its growth and improves its chances of survival.
