The Successful Chinese Family Businesses

‘Well-being’ is a contemporary term used by people around the globe to address how comfortable their lives are. The notion is considered significant to business management. Nevertheless, is well-being significant to Chinese family business? In response to this inquiry, this book demystifies the notion from a critical lens. It examines well-being in a Chinese family business context of Hong Kong.

This book consists of an archaeological and anthropological examination. The first part of the analysis draws from Foucault’s (1979) Archaeology of Knowledge to examine the discursive (trans)formation of well-being. The second part is an ethnography that focuses on a Chinese perspective regarding the everydayness of life.

In light of the recent social movements, this book not only offers an insight into the core values of Hong Kongers, but also dissects various layers of meaning in these values. Hopefully, this book can lift up the voices of Hong Kongers, who was once marginalised in the discourse of well-being.

• Demystifying ‘well-being’ in a Chinese context
• Diagnosing problem(s) in well-being discourse through Foucault’s (1972) archaeology of knowledge
• Exploring the lived experience of people working in Chinese family businesses of Hong Kong

Joey Ng is currently an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Metropolitan University (HKMU). Working in the academic field for over 15 years, she attained her PhD in Business and Management at the University of Nottingham in 2019. Through her ethnographic lens, she is interested in the lived experiences of people working in Chinese business. Her research positions within critical management studies (CMS). As a researcher, she perseveres with an obligation to critique existing management assumptions and give a voice to the marginalised. In 2018, she won The Best Doctoral Student Paper award in the annual meeting of Academy of Management (AoM) (CMS Division). That is how and why she finally chooses CMS as the ‘home’ for her research.