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Family Firms, Transnationalism and Generational Change: Chinese Enterprise in Britain and Malaysia

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Abstract

This article reviews theoretical perspectives about the development of ethnic Chinese-owned enterprises in two major sets of literature. The first school is one that adopts culture as the primary explanatory tool for the dynamism of Chinese enterprise. The second school employs the concept of transnationalism, which has served to create a link between identity and capitalism, to analyse Chinese entrepreneurship. Both sets of literature argue that common ethnic identity facilitates the creation of business networks, which explains the rise of ‘Chinese capitalism’. This study questions the foundations of these theoretical arguments by tracing the evolution of family firms and by employing the concept of ‘generational change’.

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Notes

  1. See Gordon S. Redding, The Spirit of Chinese Capitalism (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990); Michael Bond and Geert Hofstede, “The Cash Value of Confucian Values,” in Stewart Clegg and Gordon Redding, eds., Capitalism in Contrasting Cultures (New York: W. de Gruyter, 1990); and G. Rozman, The East Asian Region: Confucian Heritage and its Modern Adaptation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).

  2. Gordon Redding (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990).

  3. Richard D. Whitley, Business Systems in East Asia: Firms, Markets, and Societies (London: Sage Publications, 1992).

  4. Nicole W. Biggart and Gary G. Hamilton, “On the Limits of a Firm-Based Theory to Explain Business Networks,” in Marco Orrù, Nicole Woolsey Biggart and Gary G. Hamilton, eds., The Economic Organization of East Asian Capitalism (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997); Richard Whitley (London: Sage Publications, 1992).

  5. See, for example, Gary G. Hamilton, Asian Business Networks (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1996).

  6. Henry W.C. Yeung and Kris Olds, eds., Globalization of Chinese Business Firms (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).

  7. See, for example, Edmund Terence Gomez and Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, eds., Chinese Enterprise, Transnationalism and Identity (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003); Edmund Terence Gomez and Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, eds., Chinese Business in Southeast Asia: Contesting Cultural Explanations, Understanding Entrepreneurship (Richmond: Curzon, 2001); Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez, Transnationalism and Chinatown: Ethnic Chinese in Europe and Southeast Asia (Canberra: Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora, Australian National University, 2001).

  8. See Edmund Terence Gomez and Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003).

  9. Ibid.

  10. See, for example, Wong Siu-lun, “The Chinese Family Firm: A Model,” British Journal of Sociology 36 (1985); Hamilton and Biggart (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997).

  11. See, for instance, Hwang Kwang-kuo, “Modernization of the Chinese Family Business,” International Journal of Psychology 25 (1990).

  12. See, for example, Wong Siu-lun British Journal of Sociology 36 (1985); Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995); and M.K. Whyte, “The Chinese Family and Economic Development: Obstacle or Engine?,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 45:1 (1996).

  13. For example, Gordon Redding (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990).

  14. Francis Fukuyama (New York: Free Press, 1995).

  15. Edmund Terence Gomez, Chinese Business in Malaysia: Accumulation, Ascendance, Accommodation (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999); Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez (Canberra: Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora, Australian National University, 2001); Edmund Terence Gomez and Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003).

  16. Quoted in Asiaweek 15 May 1992.

  17. Edmund Terence Gomez (University of Hawaii Press, 1999).

  18. Edmund Terence Gomez (University of Hawaii Press, 1999); see also Sieh Lee Mei Ling, “The Transformation of Malaysian Business Groups,” in Ruth McVey, ed., Southeast Asian Capitalists (Ithaca, NY: Cornell South East Asian Studies Program, 1990).

  19. See, for example, Alejandro Portes, Luis E. Guarnizo and Patricia Landolt, “Introduction: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Field,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, special issue, 22: 2 (1999).

  20. Portes, Guarnizo and Landolt Ethnic and Racial Studies, special issue, 22: 2 (1999).

  21. Ludger Pries, “The Approach of Transnational Social Spaces: Responding to New Configurations of the Social and the Spatial,” in Ludger Pries, ed., New Transnational Social Spaces (London: Routledge, 2001), 3–33.

  22. Ibid., 20.

  23. Adam McKeown, Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900–1936 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2001).

  24. For other similar criticism of transnational theory, see Peggy Levitt, Josh DeWind and Steve Vertovec, “International Perspectives on Transnational Migration: An Introduction,” International Migration Review 37 (2000). See also Roger Waldinger and David Fitzgerald, “Transnationalism in Question,” American Journal of Sociology 109 (2004) and Alejandro Portes, William J. Haller and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo, “Transnational Entrepreneurs: An Alternative Form of Immigrant Economic Adaptation,” American Sociological Review 67 (2002).

  25. Steve Vertovec and Robin Cohen, eds., Migration, Diasporas and Transnationalism (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1999).

  26. John Kao, “The Worldwide Web of Chinese Business,” Harvard Business Review, March–April, 1993; Aihwa Ong and Donald Nonini, eds., Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism (New York: Routledge, 1997).

  27. Gordon Redding (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990); Constance Lever-Tracy, David Ip and Noel Tracy, The Chinese Diaspora and Mainland China: An Emerging Economic Synergy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996); Henry W.C. Yeung and K. Olds, eds., Globalization of Chinese Business Firms (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).

  28. Aiwa Ong and Donald Nonini (New York: Routledge, 1997), 324.

  29. Ibid., 323.

  30. Ibid., 325.

  31. This major transition in the economic and social status of the Chinese has been noted in a number of studies on ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom. See, for example: Trevor Jones, Britain’s Ethnic Minorities: An Analysis of the Labour Force Survey (London: Policy Studies Institute, 1993); Hilary Metcalf, Tariq Modood and Satnam Virdee, Asian Self-Employment: The Interaction of Culture and Economics in England (London: Policy Studies Institute, 1997); and Richard Berthoud, The Incomes of Ethnic Minorities ISER Report 98-1 (Colchester: University of Essex, Institute for Social and Economic Research, 1998).

  32. Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). See also Rubén G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes, Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) and Richard Alba and Victor Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).

  33. Pierre Bourdieu, The Fields of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

  34. Karl Mannheim, “The Problem of Generations,” in Essays in the Sociology of Knowledge, (London: Routledge, 1997).

  35. Ibid.

  36. See Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). See also Rubén G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes, Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); and Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez, The Chinese in Britain, 1800–2000: Economy, Transnationalism, Identity (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007 - forthcoming).

  37. Sapna Cheryan and Benoit Monin, “‘Where Are You Really From?”’: Asian Americans and Identity Denial,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89:5 (2005).

  38. Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007 - forthcoming).

  39. Lee Kam Hing and Lee Poh Ping, “The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, Chinese Business and Corporate Development in Malaysia”. Paper presented at the conference on “Chinese Business and Culture in Local and Global Contexts,” Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, 15–16 February 2001.

  40. Edmund Terence Gomez (University of Hawaii Press, 1999).

  41. See K.S. Jomo, Greg Felker and Rajah Rasiah, eds., Industrial Technology Development in Malaysia: Industry and Firm Studies (London: Routledge, 1999).

  42. Lee and Lee 2001.

  43. See Heng Pek Koon and Sieh Lee Mei Ling, “The Chinese Business Community in Peninsular Malaysia, 1957–1999,” in Lee Kam Hing and Tan Chee Beng, eds., The Chinese in Malaysia (Shah Alam: Oxford University Press, 2000); Rajeswary A. Brown, Capital and Entrepreneurship in South-East Asia (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994).

  44. Edmund Terence Gomez (University of Hawaii Press, 1999). See also Edmund Terence Gomez, “Governance, Affirmative Action and Enterprise Development: Ownership and Control of Corporate Malaysia,” in Edmund Terence Gomez, ed., The State of Malaysia: Ethnicity, Equity and Reform (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004).

  45. Peter Searle, The Riddle of Malaysian Capitalism: Rent-Seekers or Real Capitalists (St Leonards/Honolulu: Allen & Unwin/University of Hawaii Press, 1999).

  46. See Edmund Terence Gomez (University of Hawaii Press, 1999).

  47. Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007 - forthcoming).

  48. See Wong Siu-lun, Emigrant Entrepreneurs (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988).

  49. James V. Jesudason, Ethnicity and the Economy: The State, Chinese Business and Multinationals in Malaysia (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989).

  50. Peter Searle (St Leonards/Honolulu: Allen & Unwin/University of Hawaii Press, 1999).

  51. Bumiputera means “sons of the soil”, an epithet used to refer to the members of the ethnic Malay community, although it includes the indigenous people of Sabah and Sarawak.

  52. See Malaysian Business 1 March 1999.

  53. Wazir Jahan Karim, “The Globalization of Southeast Asia and Rooted Capitalism: Sino-Nusantara Symbiosis,” in Thomas Menkhoff and Solvay Gerke, eds., Chinese Entrepreneurship and Asian Business Networks (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002).

  54. Not all these inter-ethnic business ties should be seen as ones where the partners play an equal part in management. Some are possibly firms of the ‘Ali-Baba’ sort; that is firms where the Chinese partner is primarily responsible for developing the enterprise.

  55. Ivan Light and Steven Gold, Ethnic Economies (San Diego: Academic Press, 2000).

  56. For migrants to Britain without class resources, a small business has served as a means of achieving social mobility and coping with isolation and alienation. Where these new small businesses were partnerships, the partner was usually a co-ethnic. The financial resources were pooled and the labour force comprised members of the families. Most of these enterprises quickly evolved into solely owned firms or family businesses. For details on the evolution of firms owned by poor ethnic Chinese migrants, see Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007 - forthcoming).

  57. Edmund Terence Gomez (University of Hawaii Press, 1999); Edmund Terence Gomez, ed., (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004).

  58. For other important contributions on identity transformation among ethnic Chinese, see Ien Ang, On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West (London: Routledge, 2001); Tong Chee Kiong and Chan Kwok Bun, eds., Alternate Identities: The Chinese of Contemporary Thailand (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 2001); Andrea Louie, Chineseness Across Borders: Renegotiating Chinese Identities in China and the United States (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).

  59. For an in-depth study of this issue, see Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007 - forthcoming).

  60. The evidence to substantiate this statement can be found in our research on ethnic Chinese in Europe and Southeast Asia. See Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez, Transnationalism and Chinatown: Ethnic Chinese in Europe and Southeast Asia (Canberra: Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora, Australian National University, 2001).

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    Edmund Terence Gomez

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Gomez, E.T. Family Firms, Transnationalism and Generational Change: Chinese Enterprise in Britain and Malaysia. East Asia 24, 153–172 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12140-007-9012-1

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