Comparative Institutional Analysis Of The Organizational Development Of The South And The North Family Business

With the development of the market economy, family firms are playing more and more prominent role in each country's economic development around the world. Kelin.E.Gersick, the American scholar, pointed out the world scope 80% above enterprises are the family firms, including famous Wal-Mart and the Good Faith investment Company and other well-known big enterprise of the world, also including the small grocery store alone in a corner." Among the top 500 enterprises, there are 175 enterprises under the controlling of the family. In US, 2/3 above enterprises are the family firms, whose production value overrun more than half of the world's whole output. Such international well-known big companies as Motorola, Ford, HP, DuPont and so on, are controlled by the family. In Asia, the family firm is much more common, Japanese Panasonic, South Korea's Hyundai, four big financial groups of Thailand and so on are all enterprises controlled by families. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, there also are many enterprises are family enterprises, like Jiacheng Li and Yongqing Wang's enterprises. Mostly Chinese private enterprises are the family firms, like WanXiang group, HuaTai group, PengRun group, etc.Because of the status of family firms in the modern economy, they attract people's much attention. Meanwhile they also become the focus of some economists and managers' studies. Their research fields range from family firm's property right, government, firm culture to inheritance of firm. They make deep researches about the family firms partly or wholly. In this paper, the author adopted the method of comparison of system analysis in the new system economics. It focused on the growing path of North and South Chinese family firms. It compared the similarities and differences between the North and South family firms on formal systems such as the property right arrangement in the growing process and the principal-agency in business administration, as well as the influence of the unofficial systems inside the society and the enterprises on the enterprise growth process.In the paper, the author first stated the present situation of family firm's research and defined family firm's nature, outlined the system's connotation, characteristic, function, vicissitude and innovation, and gave a summary to the new system economic and the comparison system analysis. Then, based on the narration of family firms' property right theory, entrusts-agent theory, enterprise culture and unofficial system theory, the author compared Chinese North family firms with South family firms on family firm property right arrangement, the enterprise governs, the principal-agency, the family culture and the unofficial system, and analyzed the influence of unofficial system on the development of family firms.