Abstract:After over 30 years rapid development, China’s family firms are going into the peak time of succession but family succession is one of the significant characteristics of family firms, therefore, network strategy is an important way and strategic choice of family firm growth. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the effect of family succession intention on network strategy of family firms and also to examine the mediating role of mutual trust of partners in this relationship based on the data obtained from manufacturing family firms in Zhejiang and Chongqing. The results indicate that family succession intention positively influences centrality and density of the network, and family succession intention negatively influences duration and openness of the network in family firms. The results also show that mutual trust of partners completely mediates the relationship between family succession intention and centrality of network, and mutual trust of partners partially mediates the relationship between family succession intention and density of network in family firms. The network strategy choice of family firms should match family succession intention, emphatically cultivate the partner relation of mutual trust, and enhance the maintenance and management of the relation between the partners.