Family Matters? Recruitment Methods and Cultural Boundaries in Singapore Chinese Small and Medium Enterprises

Abstract

Singapore official discourse speaks of (Chinese) families as both cultural and economic assets and as vestiges of national identity. Chinese families are often described in traditional terms, namely as patrilinial, patrilocal, patriarchal and clearly hierarchical. In Singapore official discourse, the historical success of traditional family businesses is presented as a unique ethnic and national characteristic. Simultaneously, the Singapore state claims to be ‘modern’, ‘Western’, and ‘cosmopolitan’, allowing little space for ‘parochial practices’ and ‘archaic traditions’. Either praised or looked down on, family businesses occupy an ambiguous position within the ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ discourses of the Singapore state. This article supplies the evidence of changing family and business relations in Chinese–Singapore firms. Three major factors are isolated that influence Singapore attitudes towards family businesses: Chinese culture, globalization and the logic of developing capitalism, and the role of the Singapore state.

Keywords:

• Chinese enterprise
• family businesses
• guanxi
• ethnicity in organizations
• Singapore SMEs

Acknowledgements

This research was done as part of the Vrije Universiteit ASPASIA programme ‘Organizational Cultures in Transborder Regions’ funded by the National Research Organization (NWO) in the Netherlands and carried out in cooperation with Professor Heidi Dahles and Esther Zwart of the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.

The author is grateful to the research assistant, Chee Kong Wong, who also indebted helped in posting surveys, transcribing the interviews and organizing qualitative data.

Notes

¹ I am aware of various definitions of family firms but chose this one as it reflects the definitions found in most Singapore literature on Small and Medium Enterprises. By this definition, over 80 per cent of all Singapore Chinese firms are family firms.

² This could be due to a self-selection mechanism since the firms most willing to participate in my research were generally more successful or hopeful of future success than average.

³ This could also be due to the original selection criteria of my research, as I was primarily interested in Small and Medium Enterprises involved in cross-border trade with Malaysia.

⁴ A ‘*’ indicates a direct citation of respondent's words.