Recently, the aging of SME managers has emerged as a major issue in business succession. The smooth succession of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the industrial base of Korea, is becoming an important issue for enhancing the vitality of the national economy, such as job creation, beyond mere discussion of inheritance. At this point, this study conducted an empirical analysis on the factors affecting corporate succession intention. As independent variables, corporate Capability consisting of employee competency, marketing competency, and digital competency, human factors such as managers, successors, and third-party stakeholders, and institutional factors such as legislation, taxation, and trust were set. In addition, the effect of adjusting the sales scale was verified. To this end, a survey was conducted targeting representatives who are currently running small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The total number of valid questionnaires was 315. Based on this, an empirical analysis was conducted using the hierarchical regression method. The results of the empirical analysis are as follows. First, marketing competency and digital competency, managerial competency and successor competency, taxation and trust had a significant positive (+) effect on corporate succession intention. However, a significant influence relationship between the third stakeholder, employee competency, and corporate succession intention was not tested. Among the factors that have a significant impact, the size of the influence was in the order of taxation, successor competency, executive competency, trust, marketing competency, and digital competency. Second, the size of sales was found to moderate the relationship between the variables that had a significant effect on corporate succession intention, that is, management competency, successor competency, marketing competency, digital competency, taxation and trust, and corporate succession intention. Based on these research results, academic, practical, and institutional implications for smooth business succession are presented.