An entrepreneurial migrant family: The rise of Aw Boon Haw’s business empire in the Asia-Pacific

This research note uses the rise of Aw Boon Haw’s dynastic family businesses across Asia to illustrate Chinese migrant entrepreneurs’ business development and dynamism. Although it is known that the management and operation of Chinese migrant family businesses do have disadvantages, there is substantial evidence that family control and network capital can facilitate their business endeavors. Through the case of the Aw family business, it was found that by using key strategies of family control and its network capital, even though their migrant background posed multi-layered disadvantages, the Aw family was able to rise from rags to riches in the medicine and newspaper businesses. Not only did their migrant background not restrict Aw family business growth, it fostered its expansion in the region and the world.