Triggers influencing the decision to exit

Whilst there are significant studies on business cessation (liquidations), there has been very little research focus on business exits or business harvesting. The aim of this research was to undertake an investigation into identifying factors that lead to owners making decisions to exit their businesses. This penchant to making an exit decision is expressed conceptually in the form of an ‘exit trigger’. The study concluded that exit triggers consisted of two groups of factors: ‘opportunities’ which referred to positive factors, and ‘challenges’ which referred to negative or pessimistic factors. These factors are able influence the exit decision in isolation, or more typically, as combinations of factors operating in sequence or simultaneously. Generally, challenge factors were more likely to influence owners, but occasionally the arrival of well-timed offers proved to be persuasive in influencing owners to exit.