Abstract
The aim of this article is to indicate the characteristics, which make family business prominent in the free market. Perceiving these characteristics as values of family business gives them the opportunity to gain competitive advantage and enables multi-generation existence of the company. The process of succession, if conducted in a planned and formalized way, becomes a value itself. The two projects: ‘The guide to succession’ and ‘Value codes’, both in the testing phase, promoting the process of succession in Polish family firms, have set the creating of complex tools enabling the succession in the family business to be effected their target