From “Family Regulation” to “Enterprise Governance”: A Study of the Influence of Family Harmony on Family Firm Innovation from the Perspective of Confucian Culture
Dou Junsheng1, You Xialei2
1.School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China 2.School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China
Abstract：Social and cultural values, deeply imprinted in everyone’s way of thinking and norms of behavior, have a profound impact on the decisions and behaviors of organization managers. The influence of culture should not be ignored in the study of enterprise innovation. The Confucian culture, as the main body of the Chinese cultural tradition and also an important part of the world civilization, should be seriously considered in the study of enterprise innovation. The existing literature generally argues that Confucian culture can hinder enterprise innovation from two perspectives. Some scholars believe that the hierarchy and obedience culture advocated by Confucianism will inhibit information exchange and ideological collision within enterprises, while others argue that the emphasis on collectivism and harmony in Confucian culture will obliterate individual value and innovative thinking. In contrast, this paper argues that Confucian culture emphasizes the interpersonal relationship of equality and mutual respect rather than strict hierarchical relationships. These principles of interpersonal relations will trigger constructive interactions among organization members and promote enterprise innovation. Meanwhile, the “harmony” in the Confucian cultural tradition emphasizes “harmony without uniformity” rather than a simple pursuit of harmony. Such a culture will stimulate knowledge and opinion debates among organization members who share common values rather than stifling individuality and innovative thinking, which will in turn promote continuous innovation in the enterprise. Based on this understanding, this paper argues that family harmony of entrepreneurs will shape a unique organizational culture through the participation of family members in the enterprise, and then positively affect enterprise innovation through two paths: customer orientation and organizational formality. Empirical evidences from 504 Chinese private enterprises support this theoretical conjecture, namely, family harmony has a significant positive impact on family firm innovation, and this effect is partially mediated by customer orientation and organizational formality. This research mainly makes three theoretical contributions to the literature: Firstly, by taking macro Confucian culture as the roots of micro corporate culture, and regarding entrepreneurs and their families as an important pathway of Confucian culture exerting impacts on corporate culture, this study successfully constructs a bridge linking macro cultural tradition and micro organizational culture. This will not only deepen our understanding of the underlying logic of organizational culture affecting enterprise innovation but also provides us with new ideas and evidences for understanding the micro-foundation of the influence of cultural traditions on national or regional innovation. Secondly, taking root in traditional Chinese Confucian culture, this study identifies two unique innovative thinking and action logic in Chinese family firms, i.e., customer orientation and organizational formality, which contributes to further studies to reveal the micro influential mechanisms of Confucian culture on enterprise innovation. This study promotes the development of enterprise innovation research from the perspective of Confucian culture, and at the same time makes a marginal contribution to the development of the “Chinese management theory”. Thirdly, this research analyzes and tests the influential mechanism of entrepreneurs’ family harmony on family firm innovation from the perspective of Confucian culture. Moreover, the perspectives of the qualitative relationship aspect of the family system (i.e., family harmony), rather than the quantitative aspects such as family ownership, governance, and management, help scholars to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the family system in the field of family business research.
窦军生, 游夏蕾. 从“齐家”到“治企”：儒家文化视角下家族和谐对家族企业创新的影响机制研究[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2023, 53(6): 85-102.
Dou Junsheng, You Xialei. From “Family Regulation” to “Enterprise Governance”: A Study of the Influence of Family Harmony on Family Firm Innovation from the Perspective of Confucian Culture. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2023, 53(6): 85-102.
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