Japanese family-run businesses may pass on leadership not only to biological children: through the practice of muky\u014dshi, an adult man who marries the owners\u2019 daughter is legally adopted as a son. He usually takes the family surname and is granted the legal status of a child of the family, which helps to preserve the company\u2019s succession and the family line.<\/p>\n
Briefly about the main points<\/strong><\/p>\n The term \u00abmukoy\u014dshi\u00bb literally means \u2018adopted son-in-law\u2019. According to this model A man marries the family\u2019s daughter, and her parents arrange for him to be adopted<\/strong>. This is not merely a matter of changing one\u2019s surname upon marriage: under Japanese civil law, an adopted person is granted the legal status of a child of their adoptive parents.<\/p>\n Historically, this arrangement helped to preserve the family name, property and family business when a family had no son capable of becoming the heir. Mukoyoshi was just one option for the adoption of adults: business-minded families could also recruit other promising candidates.<\/p>\n For company owners, such a system offered the opportunity not to limit the search for a successor to their own biological children. Studies of Japanese family businesses cite promising managers and graduates of prestigious universities as potential successors.<\/p>\n Roughly one in ten of the transfers of control examined involved a son-in-law, an adopted son or an adopted son-in-law. Companies led by non-family successors performed strongly; the researchers suggested that one possible explanation was the ability to select a candidate based on their abilities rather than simply on kinship.<\/p>\n Osamu Suzuki<\/strong> joined the family Suzuki<\/strong> as an adopted son-in-law, and in 1978 he became president of the automotive group. According to a study of Japanese family-run companies, he was the fourth consecutive adopted heir to head Suzuki Motor.<\/p>\n Under his leadership, Suzuki significantly expanded its international business, notably focusing on India and Maruti Suzuki. When Suzuki stepped down as chairman in 2021, he was succeeded by his biological son, Toshihiro Suzuki. INSEAD describes this as the first instance since 1957 of the top position passing directly to a blood relative of the family.<\/p>\n In traditional Japanese family businesses, the priority was often the continuity of the family and the business, rather than simply passing on wealth to the children. If the sons were unwilling or unable to take over the company, an adopted successor would keep the business within the family.<\/p>\n According to a study by Tokyo Shoko Research, published in 2025, 62.6% of Japanese companies did not have a designated successor. At the same time, amongst those companies that had already selected a candidate, the majority planned to hand over the business to a family member.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mukoyoshi is a Japanese custom whereby a son-in-law is adopted as a son so that he may take the family surname and take over the family business.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":207433346,"featured_media":30164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_description":"\u041c\u0443\u043a\u043e\u0439\u043e\u0441\u0456 \u2014 \u044f\u043f\u043e\u043d\u0441\u044c\u043a\u0430 \u043f\u0440\u0430\u043a\u0442\u0438\u043a\u0430, \u0437\u0430 \u044f\u043a\u043e\u0457 \u0437\u044f\u0442\u044f \u0443\u0441\u0438\u043d\u043e\u0432\u043b\u044e\u044e\u0442\u044c \u044f\u043a \u0441\u0438\u043d\u0430, \u0449\u043e\u0431 \u0432\u0456\u043d \u043e\u0442\u0440\u0438\u043c\u0430\u0432 \u043f\u0440\u0456\u0437\u0432\u0438\u0449\u0435 \u0440\u043e\u0434\u0438\u043d\u0438 \u0442\u0430 \u043e\u0447\u043e\u043b\u0438\u0432 \u0441\u0456\u043c\u0435\u0439\u043d\u0438\u0439 \u0431\u0456\u0437\u043d\u0435\u0441.","rank_math_title":"\u041c\u0443\u043a\u043e\u0439\u043e\u0441\u0456 \u0432 \u042f\u043f\u043e\u043d\u0456\u0457: \u0443\u0441\u0438\u043d\u043e\u0432\u043b\u0435\u043d\u043d\u044f \u0437\u0430\u0434\u043b\u044f \u0434\u043b\u044f \u0431\u0456\u0437\u043d\u0435\u0441\u0443","rank_math_focus_keyword":"\u041c\u0443\u043a\u043e\u0439\u043e\u0441\u0456","td_subtitle":"","subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[805619],"tags":[805624],"class_list":["post-30165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-805624"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207433346"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30166,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30165\/revisions\/30166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrmedia.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Marriage is associated with becoming a legal member of a family<\/h2>\n
The selection of a successor may have been based on ability<\/h2>\n
Suzuki was led by several generations of adopted heirs<\/h2>\n
The issue of succession remains a pressing concern for companies<\/h2>\n