- Title
- Exploring entrepreneurial familism in Hong Kong and mainland China: second-generation family entrepreneurs
- Creator
- Shea, Hubert Y-T.
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2014
- Description
- Professional Doctorate - Doctor of Business Adminstration (DBA)
- Description
- This study is an early attempt to investigate entrepreneurial practices of second-generation family entrepreneurs in Hong Kong and mainland China. For the recent three decades, a group of management scholars have marshalled theoretical and empirical evidence to support their proposition that entrepreneurial practices of family entrepreneurs in Diaspora Chinese societies are due mainly to the influence of Confucianism. Based on the Weberian premise that culture can enhance levels of entrepreneurial activity and reinforce entrepreneurial practices, the so-called culturist perspective maintains that entrepreneurial practices of family entrepreneurs can be interpreted as a fixed essentialised cultural phenomenon. It further argues that family entrepreneurs have exhibited similar entrepreneurial practices in mainland China that can be attributable to the influence of Confucian cultural values. Based on in-depth interviews with and qualitative data collected from 10 second-generation entrepreneurs in Hong Kong and mainland China, this study adopts an emic approach to researching entrepreneurial practices of family entrepreneurs in three key aspects, including family, ownership, and business. The main objective of this study is to investigate enduring and changing, if any, entrepreneurial practices of second-generation family entrepreneurs in Hong Kong and mainland China. It allows the researcher an insight into how entrepreneurial practices of second generation family entrepreneurs are due mainly to the influence of traditional Confucian values. The empirical results of this study shows that second-generation family entrepreneurs had an enduring pattern of entrepreneurial practices, including family first principles, respect for some of the five cardinal values and behaviours, concentration of ownership, dearth of institutionalisation of ownership governance mechanism, the importance of moral values and self-discipline in paternalistic leadership. However, the empirical results also show that second-generation family entrepreneurs had a changing pattern of entrepreneurial practices in terms of vertical conjugal and consanguineous relationships, attitudes towards Chinese traditional rituals, preference for son to be key management successor, nepotism, patrilineal principle of intergeneration ownership transfer, separation of ownership and management, authoritarian leadership style, and unquestioned allegiance and submission from their employees. This study provides evidence against the culturist perspective that Chinese entrepreneurs are passive recipients of traditional cultural values as fundamental changes in entrepreneurial practices have been found. Therefore, the extant culturist perspective should be refined and reinterpreted judiciously when applied to second-generation family entrepreneurs in both Chinese societies nowadays.
- Subject
- entrepreneurial familism; second generation family entrepreneurs; culturist perspective; Confucianism; family; ownership; business
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1041753
- Identifier
- uon:13953
- Rights
- Copyright 2014 Hubert Y-T. Shea
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Abstract | 247 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Thesis | 2 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |