A Study On Management Style And Its Cultural Background In Chinese Family Businesses

From the viewpoint of comparative management and cross-cultural management, the author of this paper, having reviewed the extant literature, has identified the management style in Chinese family businesses (CFBs). After appraising the advantages and disadvantages of CFBs, he explored its development trend, traced the deep cultural roots of management style in CFBs, and finally reported some preliminary findings of an empirical study on some Chinese businesses in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China Mainland.This paper mainly consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the background and significances in subject selection, sets the framework, approaches and train of thought, while defining the object and scope of study, and stating the main content and achievements of the study. Chapter 2 is a critical summary of the relevant literature and theories about the subjects both on family businesses and CFBs. Chapter 3 dwells on the evolution of family business in the form of an organization world wide, and outlines the formation and development of CFBs in Southeast Asia and private-owned enterprises in China Mainland. Chapter 4 discusses the management style in CFBs, in which the author identifies the management style in CFBs as ownership and administration integrity, paternalistic leadership, differential governance and dependency on networking. The author also further evaluates objectively its merits and demerits, and analyses its development trend. Chapter 5 explores cultural background of management style in CFBs, in terms of patterns of Chinese social values and the influence of traditional family culture on management style in CFBs. In chapter 6, the author reports some preliminary findings on CFBs in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China Mainland. He first puts forward the theoretical hypotheses, and then uses the data from the questionnaire survey on business owners and senior managers in Chinese businesses in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China Mainland to analyze and examine the theoretical hypotheses with statistical tools. Chapter 7 is a comprehensive conclusion, indicating key research issues for future studies.The achievements in this paper are as follows: (1) The author has made a comprehensive summary of the management style in CFBs, making "management style" in CFBs a specific concept instead of a previously simple discussion of its characteristics. (2) From the standpoint of the relationship between culture and management, the author has successfully given a holistic outline of Chinesetraditional family culture, which probably is the most important factor influencing the management style in CFBs. (3) Using data from the questionnaire survey, the author has examined and proved the relevance between the management style in CFBs and Chinese traditional family culture. Hopefully, the preliminary findings of this survey will provide a quantitative basis for future empirical comparative studies on management of CFBs.