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?.