Social-Embedding Role and Network Logic of Small-Sized Chinese Family Firms

Abstract

We try to explain the success of Chinese family firms and their unique appearance in form of implicit alliance by adopting the concept of embeddedness and interorganizational relationships that portray the structure of economic activities under the influence of family dominant logic and social embeddedness in on-going patterns of social relations. Cases study in traditional industries identifies the importance of role of network embeddedness in facilitating, offering, maintaining and cultivating the social capital of the implicit alliance. The comparison of the Chinese versus western family firm network also distinguishes the uniqueness of Chinese implicit alliance of family firms.