In this study we review literature on leaders' impact on strategic change in the context of CEO succession events. We critically examine the progress made by research within the field focusing on four questions: WHY WHAT HOW and WHEN. WHY addresses the theoretical arguments put forth in the literature to explain the phenomenon of post-succession strategic change. WHAT addresses the contingency factors that have been argued to affect leaders' impact on strategic change in succession contexts. HOW addresses the way in which strategic change manifests itself within firms. Finally WHEN addresses the temporal dimension of strategic change. Overall we find that although research on the leadership succession strategic change (LSSC) relationship is immature with attention being focused on only few theoretical explanations and research questions it is indeed evolving. We find need for improvements to theory research questions pursued and methodology and offer several opportunities to extend the literature along these needs.