Families control more than half of the corporations in East Asia (World Bank, 1999; World Bank, 1998). The contribution of family businesses to Asia's economic growth is predicated upon successfully growing their businesses. Many family businesses in East Asia, spanning countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia, are Chinese owned and managed. Some claim that these businesses will never develop into full‐fledged multinational enterprises because of their cultural heritage (Redding, 1990). However, some Chinese family businesses have successfully made the transition. This paper presents an in‐depth study of five Chinese family businesses in Singapore that have successfully made the transition in growth and size and across national boundaries and family generations. Their business empires extend into the Asia Pacific region. This paper highlights the key success factors of these five noteworthy family businesses that enabled them to make these growth transitions.

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The East Asian financial crisis revealed the structural weaknesses of the banking systems in Asia. Post crisis, there were signs of limited recovery of the region in sight, but the region-wide reforms would take some time to complete. This paper identifies the main challenges and opportunities that are posed to the financial sector in Singapore in a post East Asian financial crisis scenario. Preserving the stability of the banking sector whilst engendering a more efficient use of capital remains a central issue in this paper. The paper also evaluates the liberalization measures adopted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to enhance the development of Singapore as a leading international financial center.

Overseas Chinese businesses have been characterized as possessing unique cultural attributes or being embedded in specific institutional environments that constrict their growth and lead to them taking on limited economic roles. Familism, particularism, nepotism and the lack of state support (among other cultural and institutional features) it is argued, stand in the way of the emergence of large, successful and enduring firms, and problems of inter-generation transition frequently lead to their demise. This paper argues that such a fatalistic prognosis is misplaced, and uses case studies of successful Chinese family businesses in Singapore to demonstrate how business leaders, as agents, can incorporate, defy, or re-combine elements from the socio-cultural environment in ways that enable continuity and growth. Additionally, this paper highlights the role of a proactive state at play in promoting a specific Chinese mode of doing business based on notions of so-called Confucian capitalism, which despite its culturalist associations, is based on capitalist practices.