The Chinese Family Firm: A Model

Three aspects of Chinese economic familism are distinguished: nepotism, paternalism, and family ownership. This essay is mainly concerned with the last aspect and the resultant phenomenon of the prevalence of family firms among privately owned Chinese commercial and industrial enterprises. It is argued that such firms are not necessarily small, impermanent, and conservative, because they tend to behave differently at various stages of their developmental cycle. Four phases of development—emergent, centralized, segmented, and disintegrative—are identified and discussed. This Chinese pattern is then compared with its Filipino and Japanese counterparts.

[1]  E. Leach,et al.  Chinese Lineage and Society , 2021 .

[2]  Myron L. Cohen.  Developmental process in the Chinese domestic group , 1970 .

[3]  D. Landes.  French Business and the Businessman: A Social and Cultural Analysis , 1965 .

[4]  J. Amyot.  The Manila Chinese : familism in the Philippine environment , 1973 .

[5]  M. Wolf.  Child Training And The Chinese Family , 1978 .

[6]  G. W. Skinner.  Chinese family and marriage in Singapore , 1960, The Journal of Asian Studies.

[7]  M. Freedman.  The Family in China, Past and Present , 1961 .

[8]  Alfred D. Chandler,et al.  Explorations in Enterprise , 1966 .

[9]  Myron L. Cohen,et al.  House United, House Divided: The Chinese Family in Taiwan. , 1977, The Journal of Asian Studies.

[10]  W. Davis.  Social relations in a Philippine market;: Self-interest and subjectivity , 1973 .

[11]  M. Barnett.  Kinship as a Factor Affecting Cantonese Economic Adaptation in the United States , 1960 .

[12]  林 耀华.  The golden wing : a sociological study of Chinese familism , 1947 .

[13]  Peter Smith.  The family business: Company or partnership? , 1979 .

[14]  Morton Fried,et al.  Fabric of Chinese society : a study of the social life of a Chinese county seat , 1953, The Far Eastern Quarterly.

[15]  I. Palmer,et al.  Study of Entrepreneurialship in Developing Countries: The Development of One Chinese Concern in Indonesia , 1970, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies.

[16]  F. Hsu.  Under the Ancestors' Shadow: Kinship, Personality, and Social Mobility in China , 1967 .

[17]  T. S. Kiang,et al.  Small scale industry in a laissez-faire economy : a Hong Kong case study , 1979 .

[18]  J. Houdaille.  Family and Kinship in Chinese Society , 1971, Population.

[19]  南開大学経済研究所,et al.  Industrial capital in China , 1936 .

[20]  E. W. Nafziger.  The Effect of the Nigerian Extended Family on Entrepreneurial Activity , 1969, Economic Development and Cultural Change.

[21]  M. Freedman.  Lineage Organization in Southeastern China , 2021 .

[22]  D. E. Willmott.  The Chinese of Semarang : a changing minority community in Indonesia , 1962 .