{"id":89,"date":"2015-12-31T03:46:03","date_gmt":"2015-12-31T03:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/?p=89"},"modified":"2025-12-31T09:44:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T09:44:57","slug":"a-growing-crisis-in-chinese-business-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2015\/12\/31\/a-growing-crisis-in-chinese-business-families\/","title":{"rendered":"A Growing Crisis In Chinese Business Families"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A proud holder of the coveted Michelin star, the Yung Kee restaurant was once considered among the world\u2019s top 15 restaurants (Fortune Magazine, 1968). However, today it symbolizes the problems faced by Chinese family businesses. In little over a decade after the death of the founding patriarch Kam Shui Fai, Yung Kee Holdings Ltd. is being liquidated on court orders. In-fighting among the two sons who inherited the business is attributed for the failed succession.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the Kam brothers are hardly alone. Such family succession feuds have wrecked relationships in other family firms like the property behemoth Sun Hung Kai. In this case, one of the younger brothers, ended up in jail on graft charges. Likewise, the family of Macau gambling magnate Stanley Ho has staged a bitter battle for control of the assets.<\/p>\n<p>Existing research confirms the problematic succession in the Chinese corporate universe. Chinese family-run firms on average witness a decrease in their profitability by about 60 percent in the intervening years after handover by the patriarch to the sibling successors. Similarly, as per a white paper released by the Fortune Generation Magazine, only 8 % of Chinese family companies have successfully managed to pass on the baton to the next generation.<\/p>\n<p>Various reasons are being attributed for these failed successions. Chinese families are traditionally very cohesive and tight-knit. It is thus surprising to witness extremely bitter family feuds devastating these relationships. Usually, successful businessmen of the past century were not educated entrepreneurs, using instinct and guile to create their success stories. As the new generation returns home with university degrees, they are impatient to metamorphose the family business into something else. In their eagerness, they overlook the importance of family relationships.<\/p>\n<p><i>Source: http:\/\/www.asiasentinel.com\/econ-business\/recipe-chinese-family-business-failures\/2\/<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A proud holder of the coveted Michelin star, the Yung Kee restaurant was once considered among the world\u2019s top 15 restaurants (Fortune Magazine, 1968). However, today it symbolizes the problems faced by Chinese family businesses. In little over a decade after the death of the founding patriarch Kam Shui Fai, Yung Kee Holdings Ltd. is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Growing Crisis In Chinese Business Families - Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2015\/12\/31\/a-growing-crisis-in-chinese-business-families\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Growing Crisis In Chinese Business Families - Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A proud holder of the coveted Michelin star, the Yung Kee restaurant was once considered among the world\u2019s top 15 restaurants (Fortune Magazine, 1968). 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In little over a decade after the death of the founding patriarch Kam Shui Fai, Yung Kee Holdings Ltd. is [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2015\/12\/31\/a-growing-crisis-in-chinese-business-families\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-12-31T03:46:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-31T09:44:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Editorial team\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Editorial team\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2015\/12\/31\/a-growing-crisis-in-chinese-business-families\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2015\/12\/31\/a-growing-crisis-in-chinese-business-families\/\",\"name\":\"A Growing Crisis In Chinese Business Families - Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-31T03:46:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-31T09:44:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/#\/schema\/person\/36b0b1fce0228ee6b0380926861571cc\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2015\/12\/31\/a-growing-crisis-in-chinese-business-families\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2015\/12\/31\/a-growing-crisis-in-chinese-business-families\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2015\/12\/31\/a-growing-crisis-in-chinese-business-families\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Growing Crisis In Chinese Business Families\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/\",\"name\":\"Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise\",\"description\":\"Creating value for families and businesses through research and innovation\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/#\/schema\/person\/36b0b1fce0228ee6b0380926861571cc\",\"name\":\"Editorial team\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20fb226145337a9ce5d93494a13b2d55?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20fb226145337a9ce5d93494a13b2d55?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Editorial team\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/author\/isb_blog_user_admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Growing Crisis In Chinese Business Families - Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogs.isb.edu\/centre-for-family-enterprise\/2015\/12\/31\/a-growing-crisis-in-chinese-business-families\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Growing Crisis In Chinese Business Families - Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise","og_description":"A proud holder of the coveted Michelin star, the Yung Kee restaurant was once considered among the world\u2019s top 15 restaurants (Fortune Magazine, 1968). 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