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Adoption of professional management in Chinese family business: A multilevel analysis of impetuses and impediments

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Abstract

Building upon the market, institutional, and cultural perspectives, this paper identifies the major impetuses and impediments that affect the professionalization of Chinese family business at the environment, firm, and owner levels. Our integrative framework projects that whether a family business owner will adopt professional managers is largely determined by the relative strength of impetus factors and impediment factors. We then discuss the possible governance choices under different configuration of impetuses and impediments. This theoretical framework is expected to help set the momentum for further conceptual exploration and empirical study in this area.

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Notes

  1. Since this paper discusses both institutional and cultural factors, we thus limit our definition of institutions to formal constraints, and leave those informal constraints such as conventions, norms and beliefs to culture.

  2. We thank an anonymous reviewer for strongly encouraging and challenging us to expand the discussion on the topic presented in this section.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, China, 100871

    Jianjun Zhang

  2. UBH 4060 One University Plaza, College of Business and Management, University of Illinois at Springfield, Springfield, IL, 62703, USA

    Hao Ma

  3. Beijing International MBA (Bi MBA), China Center for Economic Research, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, The People’s Republic of China

    Hao Ma

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  1. Jianjun Zhang
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  2. Hao Ma
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Correspondence to Jianjun Zhang.

Additional information

We would like to thank the helpful suggestions from Chao Chen, Eric Gedajlovic, Anne Tsui, as well as the insightful comments of the anonymous reviewers of this journal on an earlier version of this paper, which helped improve our paper significantly. We also thank the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Mike Peng, for his much appreciated comments and guidance regarding the revision of our paper. All omissions and errors are our own.

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Zhang, J., Ma, H. Adoption of professional management in Chinese family business: A multilevel analysis of impetuses and impediments. Asia Pac J Manag 26, 119–139 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-008-9099-y

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