Transition customs in Chinese companies: a practitioner's view

This paper provides an overview of transition strategy, focusing specifically on the Chinese business world, where the common practice is for founders to pass their companies on to their children, the younger generation. This paper describes how Chinese businesses are invariably adopting the western‐style management practice of instituting the various offices of chairman, chief executive officer, president, etc. primarily because the children of those founding fathers have been mostly sent to the USA, the UK and Canada to receive higher education. This paper concludes that these second‐generation operating managers have essentially transformed their business environments with great success, modernizing the Asian business community as a whole and competing effectively with the western world.