heterogeneous characteristics, ethnic Chinese business in Singapore
as a group displays three distinct types of management practices (Tsang, 2002).
Traditional Chinese family business (CFBs) depends very much on family lineage in
terms of ownership and control. The owner of a CFB has the final say as he is considered
as knowledgeable about all aspects of business operations. The traditional CFB would
normally send its family members abroad to be in charge of its overseas operations.
Networking is an essential part of business operations and is done by mostly by family
members, usually the boss. The approach of traditional CFBs to investment overseas,
notably in China, is considered as “informal and unstructured”. Unlike CFBs, the nonCFB approach to business displays a high degree of formalization and structured in
business organization and operations. Management decisions are usually made at their
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respective headquarters based on detailed and systematic reports sent from their
subsidiaries overseas. There is also a systematic rotation of assigning expatriate managers
overseas. In between CFBs and non-CFBS lie the semi-CFBs. The semi-CFBs will
recruit professionals to in be in charge of business operations. The top management
normally adopts group decisions made by both family and non-family members. Unfortunately, CFB are not ready to exploit the
full potential of e-commerce and e-business, because of their conservatism. Unlike CFB,
semi-CFB and non-CFB (especially the larger ethnic Chinese businesses) are making
significant in-road to commit to their investment in computer technology, information
and telecommunication industry