Abstract This article aims to understand how emerging conflicts evolve and generate negative emotions during family firms’ succession process. Relying on previous research on emotional dissonance and conflict, we conduct a single longitudinal case study by interviewing the successor, the predecessor, and other family members in a family firm in the Tunisian context. The results show that emotional dissonance plays a critical role in conflict escalation between successors and predecessors. Family systems and cultural factors explain challenges in managing emotions; however, emotions associated with family events can facilitate the evolution of the succession process by resolving conflict. This study thus reveals how and why emotions and conflicts arise during the succession process.