Abstract:     Succession is a critical stage of family businesses, which is related to their development and even their survival. Most of the existing research on succession in family businesses has focused on the return of family members to professional managers, and few scholars have explored the succession scenario of professional managers returning to family members. In fact, in the process of promoting Chinese family businesses from the first generation to the second and third generation, there have been many cases of return of professional governance to family governance, but existing literature has not yet conducted a more in-depth exploration of it. Therefore, this paper delved into the relationship between return of professional governance to family governance and corporate innovation, hoping to further fill and improve the research framework and content of family succession, and provide theoretical reference for the succession and innovation development of Chinese family businesses.This paper firstly compared the characteristics of return of professional governance to family governance, family succession, and professional manager succession. On this basis, based on the sample of Chinese listed family enterprises from 2004 to 2020, a multi-period double difference test was used to examine the impact of return of professional governance to family governance on corporate innovation. From the empirical results, compared to the succession of professional managers, the return of professional governance to family governance reduces the innovation investment of family businesses, but significantly promotes the innovation output of family businesses. The heterogeneity analysis showed that when the succession environment is stable and the difference in predecessor succession strategy is low, the return of professional governance to family governance has a more significant promoting effect on the innovation output of family businesses. Further research found that compared to the succession of professional managers, the succession of direct descendants of actual controllers has a more significant promoting effect on the innovation output of enterprises; Compared with non-direct descendant successors, direct descendant succession has a significant promoting effect on both innovation input and innovation output of enterprises.Based on the research results, we can draw the following policy implications: firstly, in terms of succession issues, family businesses should dialectically view the governance structure and not blindly discard the advantages of family governance. Secondly, Chinese family enterprises should accelerate the promotion of professional governance models, establish and improve the selection and promotion mechanisms of family enterprises, and provide a fairer employment environment for capable personnel. Finally, family businesses should establish more comprehensive plans to ensure smooth succession.Compared with existing research, the innovation of this paper lies in the following aspects: firstly, it has enriched the relevant research on family business succession. This paper focuses on the transition from professional governance to family governance as a succession scenario, not only providing theoretical explanations for real-life scenarios, but also broadening the research perspective of family succession, which helps to improve the research framework of family succession. Secondly, this paper has deepened the research on innovation in family businesses. This paper has explored the relationship between career governance returning to family governance and innovation input and output, as well as the impact of different environments and successor differences, which will help to have a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the impact of career governance returning to family governance succession scenarios on enterprise innovation.

Key words: family business, return of professional governance to family governance, corporate innovation, heterogeneity of successor