Family First? Debates about Tradition and Modernity in Singaporean Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s)1.

In official Singaporean discourse family is still viewed as a building block of society and as one of the ‘basic values ’ of national culture. Family and business are seen as intimately interlinked and mutually beneficial; the success of one reflects on positive functioning of the other. However, with the advancement of globalization and development of transnationalist trends, the question of tradition versus modernity emerges. I inquire how the evidence of changing family and business relations within Chinese Singaporean firms aids this question. As my data from the study of SME’s demonstrates, there is evidence of difficulty in maintaining family business over time2. This article aims to demonstrate to academics and practitioners that the dichotomies between ‘traditionalist ’ and ‘modern ’ views of Chinese family business can be misleading. Within family firms business practices, such as encouraging innovation through diversifying work force, can be drastically improved. Responding to the results of my research, firm managers were able not only to identify problem areas within their firms but also to think of improving their HR policies and think of more creative intervention strategies. 1 According to the homepage of Singapore-SME.com, the definition of SME is given as