TITLE:
Research Hotspots and Tendencies of Family Firms in China
AUTHORS:
Jiaqi Guo, Changhong Li, Wenting Jiao, Zhan Wang
KEYWORDS:
Family Firms, CiteSpace V, Bibliometrics, WoS, CSSCI, China
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.9 No.4,
April
24,
2019
ABSTRACT: Family firm is a unique type of organization that has existed for a long time; however, it has only been
researched recently as a mainstream subject in organization and management
studies. Due to their significant heterogeneity, relevant studies in China and
other countries present both common features, and diverse characteristics, which
embedded in different contexts. To better understand how the family firm’s
theory can enhance the development of family firm studies in China, we analyze and compare the evolution of family firm’s studies
in China and other countries of the world. The paper built on the databases,
Web of Science (WoS) and Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI), and
use CiteSpace V, which is software for visualizing knowledge domains. The
result shows that: 1) there are many studies on the governance, succession and
performance of family firms in both China and other countries; 2) in literature
of WoS, the literature had transformed from governance of company to a deep understanding of the
influences of family characteristics on business strategy and entrepreneurship;
3) most studies of the Chinese family firm are about firm governance.
Nevertheless, the definition and studies on family firms fail to connect with
the Chinese culture and understanding of “family”. Additionally, the aspects,
such as sustainable development, ecological
efficiency and international competition of family firms, need further
exploration.