CUHK Business School Research Finds Company Founders Who Were Born into Collectivist Cultures Are Likely to Retain More Company Control Within the Family

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 28 October 2021
– Since its humble beginnings in the
wake of the economic reforms and opening up enacted by the late Chinese leader
Deng Xiaoping more than three decades ago, family businesses have grown to
become the back bone of China’s economic growth. In China, family firms contributed
to about 60 percent of the country’s GDP and hiring 80 percent of the
workforce, according to professional services firm EY. But what makes these family firms
tick and under what conditions do they prosper? It is with these questions in
mind that a recent research study in China examines the effect of culture on
family firms and finds their formation (and subsequent prevalence) tend to be
boosted by societies that are more collectivist in nature.

Rice farming requires coordinated irrigation and shared labour among farmers, which likely led to a more interdependent culture in the rice farming regions.

The study Collectivist
Cultures and the Emergence of Family Firms sought to look at how the level of collectivism in Chinese
society affected the degree to which the first generational founder of a
company was willing to spread ownership of their businesses among family
members as well as employ them as managers and in senior executive positions.
In general, collectivist cultures have a strong emphasis on group achievements
and the decisions are often made in the best interest of the group.
Individualist cultures, on the other hand, focus on personal goals and
benefits. The research was co-conducted by Joseph Fan,
Professor of the School of Accountancy and Department of Finance at The Chinese
University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School, Dr. Gu Qiankun at Wuhan
University and Dr. Yu Xin at the University of Queensland.

Combing through information on 1,103
private firms that went public in China from 2004 to 2016, the researchers
compared the birthplace of their company founders with data on share ownership
by other family members as well as the number of family members who take up managerial
roles within the organisation. They concluded that company founders who hail
from a stronger collectivistic cultural background tend to hire more family
members as managers, maintain more company ownership within their families, and
they may share the controlling ownership with more family members.

In coming to this conclusion, the
researchers leveraged on the so-called “rice theory” of culture. “It
is no secret that China has a strong collectivist cultural history. But, what’s
more interesting is that how ‘tight-knit’ the family is actually depends on
what they eat,” Prof. Fan says.

‘Rice Theory’ of Culture

Since ancient times, people in
northern China grew wheat, while those in southern China farmed paddy rice.
Rice farming requires coordinated irrigation and shared labour among farmers,
which likely led to a more interdependent culture in the rice farming regions.
However, such farming arrangement is not required in wheat-farming regions and
therefore, it was theorised wheat farmers are more individualistic when
compared with rice farmers. Studies have also demonstrated that this disparity
in culture between rice and wheat farming have extended far beyond the farming
community and to those who were born and raised in those regions.

The sample used in the study
includes private firms in 31 provinces in China, and more than half of them
located in Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, which belong to the rice farming
regions. Coincidentally, most of the founders in the sample were also born in
these three provinces.

The results show that founders who
hail from the rice farming regions involved more family members (whether that
be through ownership or management) by 16.24 percent than those who were from
wheat regions. Company founders who were influenced by rice farming culture
also owned on average 10.38 percent more in their firms (either through direct
shareholdings or through family ownership) but this was more spread out over
their family members by 11.58 percent. In addition, a one standard deviation
increase in rice culture influence was linked to a 5.32 percent increase in
family ownership and a 5.93 percent decrease in ownership concentration within
the family.

“They say that the family that
plays together stays together. The stronger the collectivistic influence on the
founders, the more likely that they would share their firm ownership with more
family members,” Prof. Fan says. “We think that in a collectivist
society, family guidance helps to serve as an effective force for governance
within an organisation.”

Family Governance

Prof. Fan explains that in a
collectivist culture, which puts the group’s benefits above everything, values
are learned and shared by family members and further strengthened by familial
interactions. The family of a company founder, in getting involved in the
business, can potentially serve as a corporate governance force because their
unique and close relationship between members can provide discipline for the
company, improve the sharing of information and knowledge and reduce the effort
needed in communication and monitoring activities.

As a result, the researchers believe
that firms managed by families can benefit from lower corporate governance
costs compared to their non-family-run counterparts, and the same would hold
true in that the governance costs of firms would be lower in those regions
influenced by collectivist cultures as opposed to those that were influenced by
individualist cultures.

“Since a higher level of family
ownership and management is associated with a lower governance cost, it makes
sense for the founders who were born into a collectivist cultural background to
involve their family members more,” Prof. Fan comments, adding that it is
the birthplace culture of the founders, rather than the cultures of where they
usually work in or reside, that has the strongest impact.

On the other hand, the researchers
also considered the possibility that Confucian values, which is also deeply
rooted in Chinese culture, could be at play in the formation of family
businesses. In fact, rice growing regions are also typically heavily influenced
by Confucian culture. For instance, Shandong province – the hometown of
Confucius, is also famous for its rice. Prof. Fan and his co-authors also took
this possibility into concern. However, after doing several rounds of
additional tests, they did not find any evidence that supported the role of the
Confucian values in the formation of family businesses.

Firm Characteristics

According to the study, companies in
the traditional manufacturing and trading sectors, such as metal materials,
timber and furniture, and wholesale, engage the highest number of family
members through either ownership or management. Businesses in the machinery sector,
as well as the information technology sector involve significantly more
founding family members if they come from a collectivist culture compared to
those from individualist cultures. Prof. Fan says this may indicate the
corporate governance costs and benefits of collectivist cultures may vary
depending on the industry.

Companies with a larger size are
also more likely to have more founding family members and more family owners.
However, founders with higher education levels and those firms with more
leverage are less likely to involve family members in their business
operations, but they are more willing to share ownership with their family
members.

As their current research has
already established a strong relationship between collectivist cultures and the
establishment of family businesses, Prof. Fan and his co-authors expect future
research studies to further expand the scope of the roles of culture in
governing other stakeholder relationships.

“Do founders from a collectivist
cultural background compensate their managers with less emphasis on monetary
rewards while individualist business owners tend to give their staff more
incentive compensation that’s in line with the market? Or, when faced with
uncertainties, will the former be more conservative while the latter is more
willing to take risks? These questions are worth exploring in the future,”
Prof. Fan adds.

Reference:

Fan, Po Hung Joseph P. H. and Gu, Qiankun and Yu,
Xin, Collectivist Cultures and the Emergence of Family Firms (April 1, 2021).
Forthcoming in Journal of Law and Economics, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3839978

This article was first published in the China
Business Knowledge (CBK) website by CUHK Business School: https://bit.ly/3DWOFbl.