1 COPING WITH GROWTH TRANSITIONS: THE CASE OF CHINESE FAMILY

Families control more than half of the corporations in East Asia (Claessens, Djankov, Fan and Lang, 1999; Claessens, Djankov and Lang, 1998). The contribution of family businesses to Asia’s economic growth is predicated upon successfully growing their businesses. Many family businesses in East Asia, spanning countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, are Chinese owned and managed. It has been asserted these businesses will never develop into full-fledged multinational enterprises because of their cultural heritage (Redding, 1990). However, there are Chinese family businesses that have successfully made the transition. This paper reports an in-depth study of five Chinese family businesses in Singapore that have successfully made the transition in growth, in size, across national boundaries and acros