界定家族企业的两个标准及其性质演变

Family Business:Two Defining Standards and Changes in Essence

在家族企业的界定上,无论是基于所有权份额还是控制权程度都存在缺陷;相反,基于"家"共同体中私人性的缘关系这一根本特征则可以更清晰地对家族企业和现代企业加以区分。这包括两个基本维度:管理者的产生机制和组织运行的治理机制。一般地,在领导人产生机制上,家族企业往往是基于特殊关系的亲亲原则,而现代企业则是基于普遍关系的贤能原则;在企业治理机制上,家族企业往往基于唯亲缘观的人治原则,而现代企业则是基于唯岗位观的规治原则。当然,随着家族企业的社会性和公共性属性的增强,也出现了各种变体,并对家族企业的性质产生了深远的影响。特别是自从家族企业从无限责任制向有限责任制转变之后,管理者及其家族就不再享有家族企业的独占所有权,不再能够实行人治式的管理,也不再具有指定继承人的权利。

Adequate definition of what constitutes family business must take into account serious drawbacks in using the criteria of ownership share or degree of actual control. We can better distinguish between family business and other modern enterprises by focusing on two basic aspects： top management creation and administrative/operation pattern. Generally speaking, family enterprises choose leadership on the basis of kinship, whereas other normal modern business enterprises create their top management team by talent. When running the organization, family enterprises tend to subscribe to the principle of personal rule, in contrast to the post-based rule by regulation more typical of the other modern business enterprises. As the public and social aspects to a family business wax with the passage of time, its leadership creation mechanisms and operation patterns undergo fundamental changes, giving rise to mutations of its nature. In particular, when legal liability of the family enterprises change from unlimited liability toward one of limited liability, top managers and their family no longer possess exclusive control of the enterprise and hence no longer exercise kinship-based, personal governance; it also loses the right to appoint inheritor.