The women of Asia's family-owned business are coming into their own
Anita Fung says that, amid changing patriarchal attitudes, female members of Asia's family-owned businesses are becoming empowered and less likely to have to face the irreconcilable choice between tradition and modernity
It is one of the ironies of Asia’s astonishing leap into modernity that it has been largely driven by one of the oldest ownership structures on the planet, the family firm, founded by men – and they are nearly all men – most of whom are or were deeply imbued with traditional Confucian precepts of filial duty, harmony and clearly defined gender roles.
That has left many female members of Asia’s business dynasties at the sharp end of the clash between tradition and progress, torn between family duty and the potential of an independent career.
A new report, “Understanding the past – Looking to the future”, for HSBC Private Bank, examines the competing pressures on a new generation of women working for their family companies in Asia and suggests that resolving the conflict could have tangible financial and dynastic benefits, as well as improving family harmony.
Asian patriarchs may be traditional, but that does not stretch to keeping their daughters in ignorance. Many are proud graduates of the world’s most prestigious universities and business schools, and have gone on to hold down demanding executive positions at multinationals.
But the siren call of duty is almost always irresistible: they return to Asia and the family company, traditionally to a less clearly defined job, in a corporate environment that favours their male siblings and where they are expected to juggle the tradition-bound roles of daughter, wife and mother with those of corporate trouble-shooter for their fathers.
“I basically oscillate between being a ‘CCC’ (chairman’s chief confidante) or a ‘CCJ’ (corporate chief janitor) depending on his mood that day,” one of the report’s interviewees says of her father.
