Purpose This paper, from the perspective of based view of dynamic system, aims to take the family enterprise as a sample to articulate how the speed of institutional change affects the entrepreneur’s spirit collocation of family enterprises and investigate the moderating effects of the scale of enterprises as well. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses survey database from Chinese research of private enterprise group in 2010 with the ninth national large-scale private entrepreneurs, and the legal source of data comes from research center for Chinese family firm of Sun Yat-Sen University. A total of 4,900 questionnaires are issued, 4,614 are recovered and the total recovery rate is 94.16 per cent. In this paper, STATA12.0 is used for data processing and basic regression testing. To overcome the possible existence of the different variance problem, the authors use the feasible generalized least squares to estimate the model. Findings The speed of institutional change will lead to the reduction of unproductive activities and the increase of productive activities in the area where the speed of institutional change is slow. Meanwhile, the scale of enterprise can reverse the negative relationship between the speed of institutional change and unproductive activities. The speed of institutional change will lead to the reduction of unproductive activities and the increase of productive activities in the area where the speed of institutional change is fast. Meanwhile, the scale of enterprises can reverse the positive relationship between the speed of institutional change and the unproductive activities. Originality/value It can be concluded that because of the difference of the regional market, a positive U-type reflects the relationship between the speed of institutional change and the entrepreneur’s allocation of entrepreneurship in family firms, whereas the scale of enterprises plays a key role of nonlinear regulation. This research has a certain theoretical value and practical significance on the understanding of how family firms make strategic decisions in response to institutional change and it can further enrich the research results of entrepreneurship allocation theory and institutional change theory.

Since the Chinese economic reform, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has gradually moved toward a separation of the party-state from society, manifested in the withdrawal of party power from many areas of society and the growing new power of private enterprises. The CPC has actively reformed itself as it has evolved from a revolutionary party into a governing party. The party's support of and collaboration with private enterprises, a powerful and indispensable force in the Chinese economy, is a good example of such a change. Instead of focusing on political acceptance and organizational infiltration as most of the existing studies have done, this paper examines the political incorporation of the CPC's integration policy towards private enterprises. Theoretical analysis, supported by case studies, indicates that the relationship between

What is the relationship between Chinese familism and the modern economic organization? Can a rational, contractual relationship grow out of Chinese familism that widely exists in Chinese family businesses? This paper holds that Chinese familism can nurture a rational and contractual relationship. However, such a relationship is not an extremely instrumental rationality of Logocentrism, but a zhongyong rationality characteristic of Confucian culture essence. This paper verifies empirically for the first time the existence of zhongyong rationality by analyzing family entrepreneurs' governance choices. The results reveal that under the guidance of zhongyong rationality, entrepreneurs in Chinese family firms lay more emphasis on restraints than on efficiency, balance the interests among the management, the firm and the owning family, and maintain equilibrium between the insiders and outsiders. This research also finds that a shift from instrumental rationality to zhongyong rationality can provide more satisfactory and indigenous explanations to some phenomena widely in existence among Chinese family firms, as compared with corresponding Western theories.