annotation 4

     Family business can sometimes be passed sown meaningfully and is worth-praised because of the spirit they hold and the efforts they made to protect their family firm’s reputation.

            

     After that, YuZhenZhai experienced some difficult time that it was forced to shut down because of the worsen financial environment. However, those children in order to live their life and not willing to give up the family spirit in managing firm, they rebuilt the business, came up with some special desserts and passed it down successfully.

     Passing to the seventh-generation successors, unavoidably they faced the serious problem that sibling fought for the management rights. The order brother then decided to give up the fight to his young brother and built another YuZhenZhai cooporation. He tried hard to learn new skill by studying abroad and keep the traditional taste that has passed down since hundred ago and was recognized by other relatives and now is managed blossomedly and notoriously in Taiwan.

     In this case, we could see that what supports those children from generation to generation to keep this bakery firm going is mainly the common spirit they share in the Huang family which has existed for decades. And that is the vital difference between family firms and other firms that are kept by professional managers. And this also makes the whole family and business more valuable and unique.

     But there are also lots of entrepreneurs who decide not to pass down their self-build firm to their children. Here we take WenLongShe, the founder of ChiMei, as example. In his opinion, he thought that sharing possession will only cause the fight between descendants and he even thought that his son do not have adequate ability and is not qualified to manage the firm comparing to other professional managers who have accumulate many years’ working experiences. For him, there are no reasons to pass down his work to his own family members.

     In conclusion, entrepreneurs could have different reasons and considerations and decide whether or not to pass down the firm. But when talking to passing to his or her own descendants, the spirit that is wanted to be protected is inevitable. If the descendants could keep the culture of the firm or if the social value changes, how they adapt themselves to deal with problems that come along to keep the family firm alive. 

Hsu, Z(2010). The venture and succession of chinese family firm. In Global View Magazine. Dec 29, 2012, from http://www.gvm.com.tw/Boardcontent_15804_4.html

The story of succession(n. d.). In YuZhenZhai. Dec 29, 2012, from http://laicarfo-1.ecservice.com.tw/cetacean/front/bin/ptlist.phtml?Category=172629

peer comments

Julia:
 what do you mean level?  the level means the personal trait?

Pearl: 

• In your second paragraph, you refer the personal trait
• but i do not know what you actually want to say.
  
  
  So does it means that parents should follow their personal traits to decide whether their children should inherit the firm or not?
  
  
  I think it is boring to talk about the personal traits by classing characters

   and I really want to say it can not prove anything.
  
  
  • I think your reason and your result are not clear.
  • when I read it I will think "so?"
  • when you revise you may build your structure again.
    LISA
    so what is your point about this source?
    
    
    so you  just want to show the factors of your issue in this annotation?
    
    
    i wonder what you think about your issue after knowing the factors.
    
    
    can you tell us your view about your issue? u think that the children succeed their parent's business is good or not good?

(REVISED) ANNOTATION 3

The Determinants of Career Choice Intentions of Adolescents with Family Business Background

Source: Elke Schröder, Eva Schmitt-Rodermund, and Nicolas Arnaud: Career Choice Intentions of Adolescents With a Family Business Background (SAGE journals, 2011)

After talking why parents try to pass down their firm to their children, here is factors that affect those children whether to take it or not.
In this essay, the author discusses different factors that affect the decision of career of children with family business background. He categorizes out five categories: personal traits, gender, identification with the family business, perception of fathers’ work conditions and parental succession preference and preparation.

About the gender, according to his research, it indicates that females, although not

actually excluded from the list of succession candidates, are disadvantaged comparing with male siblings; and offspring in family businesses who feel that the family firm is an important part of their self are thought to develop a strong desire to contribute to the family firm’s success, then they will tend to make a decision to start a career within the family firm; and fathers’ work condition also play an vital role. The author revealed that adolescents have relatively accurate impressions of their parents’ work-related effect and that these impressions are significantly linked to adolescents’ respect for their parents’ jobs, which may affect their decision; furthermore, research on parent’s role in youth career development demonstrates parents’ influence on adolescents’ career planning (Otto, 2000) and parents, especially mothers, are found to be the most important advisors of their children in the process of making career plans; and the last factor is that parents who systematically prepare their young family members through information and participation in the family business are likely to contribute to their offspring’s succession intention.

This essay clearly explained and analysis the condition that adolescents with family background face. How they are affected in the career choosing part in their life by those factors simultaneously. 

annotation 3

The Determinants of Career Choice Intentions of Adolescents with Family Business Background

In this essay, the author discusses different factors that affect the decision of career of children with family business background. He categorizes out five categories: personal traits (Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness to Experience, and Neuroticism), gender, identification with the family business, perception of fathers’ work conditions and parental succession preference and preparation.

About the personal traits, he says one could speculate that succession is preferred at medium levels of entrepreneurial personality characteristics, whereas high levels of such characteristics are more likely to classify potential founders and low levels can be expected as typical for potential employees. For example, high levels of Openness are expected to spur the founding intention, medium levels the succession intention, and low levels the intention for employment outside the family business. In contrast, high levels of Neuroticism are assumed to stimulate employment outside the family firm, medium levels the succession intention, and low levels the intention to create a new firm.

And he thought that depending on the adolescent’s abilities, interests, and connectedness to the family, this potential succession option may be perceived as an opportunity or a burden. For example, succeeding as head of a family firm requires the ability to take responsibility, interest in the branch of the business, and the willingness to work closely together with other family members. In comparison, while founding a new firm also requires entrepreneurial abilities, it also allows the individual to choose his or her own area of interest and to work independently

from family bonds. Similarly, regular employment outside the family business involves free choice of an area of interest, independence from the family, and less responsibility for the family and their business. However, both founding and regular employment career options may also be accompanied by parental disappointment and the problem that parents have to find an alternative solution for securing the survival of the family business.

I think this essay clearly explained and analysis the condition that adolescents with family background face. How they are affected in the career choosing part in their life. 

REFLECTION 1

REFLECTION 1

     To be honest, I’d never given a thought to this issue that I chose before this class. Because I’d taken it for granted that there was no doubt that it was my brother who should take over the family firm since I knew it. But when I was finding a topic, I asked myself to find one that was related to my own life or experiences and I would have interested in it. Therefore, I thought around my own life, my family, and thought of my brother who now is in China, then my issue paper was born.

   
     During the writing of the two annotations, because it was the first time I wrote this kind of article, I felt nowhere to go. All that I did is to key the keyword in google scholar and while scanning through those topics of many essays, waiting for the inspiration of my annotations come to my mind. but soon I knew it was dangerous that I would be affected by the massive amount of information on the Internet and lose my own opinions.
   
     In annotation 1 and 2, I talked about the inner factors of why that happens. Then in annotation 3 and 4, I want to try to talked about the outer factors that cause this phenomenon. Though I realize that there are lots of reasons that have to be discussed, however, in this short essay that could only include four annotations, i hope I could have a clear and simple track without too many distractions to disturb and confuse the readers, and myself too.    

annotation 2 revised

What is the Purpose of Passing the Firm Down to The Next-Generation While There is a Low Success Rate
source: Wang Luzhuang, Fang Jie, Tan Xiaoyan: An Empirical Study on the Inheritor Training of Modern Chinese Family Business (Science Research Management, 2008, Vol. 29)
     According to the article(Wang, Fang, & Tan, 2008), after choosing the successors, the owner’s children, they start to plan or do whatever they can to help their children to become competent, decisive, sociable and so on. There are many way the owners use to cultivate their children to be an apt successors. Giving pressure on grade is the most often way to urge them since they are young. The parents hope that they can have a better education background to convince people that they are the proper one to take over the company, not just because they are lucky enough to be the owners’ children. And arranging the successor to the management position or bottom position is the sometimes essential procession of succession. One of the purposes may be to be familiar with the way the firm operates at the same time to know other employees well. The last one mentioned is also a vital way the parents train their children, that is bringing them to different formal occasions, to know their parents’ business friends and to learn the manners.

Having these preparations, you may think they may be good enough to manage the firms. However, one statistics show that the success rate of passing is decreasing with the generations. There are 40% could last to the second generation and 13% to the third generation. And only 3% of firms still live well under the forth generation’s management. It is reasonable that a company edging down to closing up with years. Then there is no reason to insist on passing down the firm to the next generation. As I mentioned before, the offspring are not necessary appreciate the faith the entrepreneurs hold, and on the other hand, doing so could restrict the children’s freedom to choose or find what they really want to do by deciding for them at the very first. 

peer comments(2)

Tina: You can compare eastern families with western families. Because I think western parents tends to encourage children to have more freedom and choose their own career.

Corien: Could you mention the difference of boys and girls in chose to be the successors.

Templar: What if there is a daughter? would your parents choose her to success the firm?

Richard: How about other children in the family? Do they be restrict on choosing their own career, either?.