Understanding the Internationalisation of Family Businesses: Lessons from the History of Chinese and Lebanese Diaspora

Abstract

The emerging work on the internationalisation of the family businesses suggests that family businesses in general tend have low levels of internationalisation when compared to their non-family counterparts. Here, we review the Diaspora internationalisation history of Chinese family businesses in Southeast Asia, and of Lebanese family businesses in West Africa. The review highlights the interplay with the local varieties of capitalism, and underscores four factors in successful overseas market entry and growth of the overseas family businesses (OFBs): business strategic intent, family stewardship, direct and institution-mediating community sponsorship, and gender-centred leadership. We offer a schematic mapping of these four factors on to the four systems of family business – family, business, ownership, and gender, using Parson’s structural functionalism theory and AGIL schema Implications for further research and for the family business practitioners are discussed.