The Role of the Wife in Overseas Chinese Family Businesses

2015 ◽  
pp. 115-123
2008 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 99-125
Author(s):  
Barry Wilkinson ◽  
Siew Tong Fock

Abstract Overseas Chinese businesses have been characterized as possessing unique cultural attributes or being embedded in specific institutional environments that constrict their growth and lead to them taking on limited economic roles. Familism, particularism, nepotism and the lack of state support (among other cultural and institutional features) it is argued, stand in the way of the emergence of large, successful and enduring firms, and problems of inter-generation transition frequently lead to their demise. This paper argues that such a fatalistic prognosis is misplaced, and uses case studies of successful Chinese family businesses in Singapore to demonstrate how business leaders, as agents, can incorporate, defy, or re-combine elements from the socio-cultural environment in ways that enable continuity and growth. Additionally, this paper highlights the role of a proactive state at play in promoting a specific Chinese mode of doing business based on notions of so-called Confucian capitalism, which despite its culturalist associations, is based on capitalist practices. Keywords: Chinese family business, inter-generation transition, Chinese culture, entrepreneurial agency.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Wang ◽  
Qiang Liang ◽  
Lihong Song ◽  
Erming Xu

Purpose With features of both “family” and “business,” family businesses must seek a balance between the emotional aspect of “family” and the economic aspect of “business” in its organizational and decision-making processes to ensure the sustainability of the family’s entrepreneurship. This study aims to focus on how internal institutional complexity combined evolves alongside the growth of the family business. Design/methodology/approach The research looks, from the perspective of institutional logic, into the Charoen Pokphand Group, which is an epitome of overseas Chinese family businesses and proceeds to build a model of family business growth in the context of institutional complexity. Findings The research finds that as a family business grows, institutional complexity inside the organization would change from aligned period to sustaining period and then to dominant period. Then further elucidates the process of proactive response in different stages of the development of a family business. Attaching equal importance to the cultivation of entrepreneurship and to the continuation of family values and culture is the crucial mechanism by which Chinese family businesses seek a balance between family logic and business logic. Originality/value This paper unveils the change of institutional complexity in the evolution of family businesses and the process of action of its agency as an organization, and simultaneously partly reveals the features of entrepreneurship that overseas Chinese family businesses have as they grew, which is of positive significance for exploring and building a path of growth unique to Chinese family businesses.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Mustafa ◽  
Hazel Melanie Ramos ◽  
Thomas Wing Yan Man

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of psychological ownership (both job and organisational based) on extra-role behaviours among family and non-family employees in small overseas Chinese family businesses. Design/methodology/approach – Empirical evidence was drawn from a survey of 80 family owners/managers and non-family employees from 40 small overseas Chinese family businesses from the transport industry in Malaysia. All proposed hypothesis were tested using hierarchical moderated regression analyses. Findings – Job-based psychological ownership was found to significantly predict both types of extra-role behaviours. Organisational-based psychological ownership, however, was only a significant predictor of voice extra-role behaviour. Interestingly enough, no significant moderating effects on the relationships between the two dimensions of psychological ownership and two types of extra-role behaviour were found. Originality/value – Having a dedicated workforce of both family and non-family employees who are willing to display extra-role behaviours may be considered as an essential component of business success and long-term continuity for many family firms around the world. This particular paper represents one of the few empirical efforts to examine the extra-role behaviours of employees in family firms from emerging economies.


1991 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodora Ting Chau

By concentrating on the approaches to succession in Japanese and overseas Chinese family businesses, this article attempts to come to terms with the question of why Japanese firms enjoy corporate longevity while overseas Chinese firms do not. Succession in the overseas Chinese family (coparcenary) is different from succession in Japanese families (primogeniture) at every relevant point, and these differences have important consequences for overseas Chinese family business. The article also discusses economic, historical, and social functions of the two inheritance systems.


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