Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to bring together a strategic choice perspective and an institutional perspective in order to address the key research questions: how do Russian founder-CEOs perceive the institutional environment when succession issues are taken into consideration?; how do the perceived characteristics of different formal and informal institutions affect the founder-CEO’s decision to delegate authority to a professional CEO?; and what are the main barriers to founder-CEO succession in threshold firms in emerging markets such as Russia? Design/methodology/approach – Using a data set of 500 entrepreneurial companies from fast growing industries in Russia, the paper defines and studies threshold firms and analyses how various perceived characteristics of the institutional environment in emerging markets influence the likelihood of transition from founder management to professional management. Findings – Institutional factors such as poor security of property rights and dependence of the