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家族企業之興業行為：探究忠僕型經理人、開創性導向以及新產品開發之關係
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industrialized Asian country that heavily relies on SMEs to drive economic growth.
According to Taiwan’s government investigation in 2007, more than 65% of GDP and 77%
of jobs opportunity are created by SMEs. Secondly, the majority of Taiwanese SMEs are
family business (Gabrenya and Hwang, 1996). Thirdly, a number of large firms in Taiwan
were established as family-based SMEs, such as Formosa Plastics and Uni-President. The
above evidence reveals that the family-based SMEs in Taiwan play a vital role in sustaining
the economy. Fourthly, the development of family-based SMEs in Taiwan can be referred by
other developing countries or areas with Chinese features. The chosen research setting is
expected to enrich the understanding of family business management.
Due to the fact that family-based SMEs in Taiwan are mostly private firms, the
following survey approach was selected to collect the data. The data was gathered through a
fully standardized questionnaire containing six-point Likert-type scales. To obtain more
reliable ratings of the family businesses and avoiding common method bias under
consideration, multiple respondents from a single firm participated, one of whom is the
manager and the others are employees. The survey packages include two types of
questionnaires. One is designed for employees and accountants, which aims to measure
stewardship orientation and perceived firm performance. The other will be for managers,
which aims to measure family social capital, explorative and exploitive activities. Moreover,
in order to confirm the sample firms are family-based SMEs, the manager was asked to
answer questions associated with the ownership and management structure of their firms. If
the ownership and management structure is met with one of the following conditions (Chua,
Chrisman, and Sharma, 1999), then the status of family-based SMEs is confirmed: (1) at
least 50% of ownership and management is controlled by the family, or (2) 50% of
ownership is controlled by the family but the company is not family-managed, or (3) less
than 50% of the ownership is controlled by the family, the company is family-managed and
the majority of shares is owned by an investment company or a venture capital firm.
By adopting a random screening method, two hundred SMEs were randomly selected
from the 2010 SMEs Firm List, which is published by China Credit Information Service
Ltd., and then were invited to participate in the study. The survey packages were sent to
these firms in August 2012. All of the surveys were conducted anonymously. Each package
contained two employee and one manager questionnaires, and small gifts which were used to
boost survey response rates. Survey candidates were provided the options of mailing or
giving their responses directly to the researchers. A half month later, we received surveys
from 190 companies. Those responses involving missing data or unfitting with the definition