A Conceptual Model of Small Business Owners’ Unique Retirement Decisions: Multilevel Antecedents and Retirement Adjustment Consequences

The research on small business owners’ (SBOs’) retirement process has been very limited in the literature. In this commentary, we first outline SBOs’ 4 specific retirement decision options, including family succession, retire from management while maintaining ownership, independent sale, and liquidation. We then examine their unique multilevel antecedents that may shape SBOs’ retirement decisions at the individual (e.g., psychological ownership), relational (e.g., business-related family conflict and potential successor), and business (e.g., presence of business partners and business financial value) levels. Next, we explain how SBOs’ specific retirement decisions may shape their retirement adjustment in terms of both psychological and financial well-being. The overall purpose of this article is to provide a conceptual model of SBOs’ unique retirement decisions to support the understanding of SBO’s retirement process and help the literature move forward on this topic.