Organisational Path-Dependence and Institutional Environment

Through a case study of Chinese Family Business Groups (FBGs) in East Asia, this paper examines the relationship between the strategic behaviour exhibited by an organisational form and it's administrative heritage. To do so, we trace the origins of the strategic behaviour which scholars commonly attribute to FBGs to the environmental conditions prevailing during their emergence in the turbulent post-Colonial era of East Asia. We explain how fundamental changes brought about by shifts in the post-Cold war environment of East Asia have confronted FBGs with new opportunities and organising imperatives which their administrative heritages have left them ill-equipped to deal with. In concluding, we explain how the lack of fit between a dominant organisational form and contemporaneous environmental conditions may have significant implications for the organisations themselves and the economies whose landscape's they dominate.