Every micro organization ensures the deployment of its best practices for sustainability amidst seemingly competitive, complex and unpredictable business environment. Consequently, supportable leaders are needed to ensure longevity and sustained performance. This calls for succession management. The study therefore aimed to examine the effect of succession management on sustainability of micro organizations with a focus on the challenges in the South East. Survey method was adopted. The population of the study was infinite. However, purposive random sampling was adopted to select 50 micro organizations. Sources of data were through primary and secondary sources. Structured questionnaire was the major research instrument. The validity of instrument was determined by applying construct validity which refers to the degree to which the questionnaire measures the theoretical concept that the researchers hope to measure. A test-re-test method of reliability was adopted for the study. Simple regression analysis with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was adopted. The findings showed inter alia that; sustainability of micro organizations significantly depends on succession management, usually achieved through training and retention of existing employees in an organization. There is high optimism among the organizations sampled in the Southeast that adequate planning and execution of succession management will ensure productive longevity of many organizations in the geopolitical zone.The study contributed to existing knowledge on the indispensability of succession management to the sustainability of micro organizations in the Southeast. It confirms that the most efficacious means of organizational sustainability is through training and retention of existing employees of organizations. Therefore, this construct should be considered by micro organizations in planning and implementation process to remain afloat.The population of the study is limited to one geopolitical zone in the country-the South East, thus the result cannot be generalized to the remaining five zones. There is need for more studies on the remainder of the zones in Nigeria.
Keywords: Employee Retention, Staff Training, Sustainability, micro organization, succession management planning
