This book presents a new conceptualization of the idea of legacy in a family business setting as an educational experience of teaching and learning between generations.
Using the lived experience of the author, it combines autoethnography with a discussion on the influence of Chinese culture on family business and expectations placed on the eldest son, as well as Bill Pinar’s model of Currere, to investigate the processes around intergenerational learning. The author argues that legacy is the process of journeying to full personhood and the results of connected and collective aspirations, shifting the focus from succession that is often marked by silence and power control. The author’s approach to business as a field has transformed its strong instrumental approach into an existential orientation with self-discovery and self-creation as an ongoing process.
Providing the new and innovative beginnings of a theoretical curriculum that could foster legacy processes and taking a unique and interdisciplinary approach to looking at family business and legacy, this book will be relevant to scholars and researcher of both education and business studies.
Author(s): Samuel Chen
Series: Studies in Curriculum Theory Series
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 169
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Prologue
References
Chapter 2: Methodology
2.1 The Decision to Use a Qualitative Approach
2.2 Selecting Autoethnography as a Method of Inquiry
2.2.1 Evocative Genre of Autoethnography
2.2.2 Wrestling with ‘Ethno’ Part of Autoethnography and Situating Self
2.2.3 How to Evaluate?
2.2.4 The Decision to Incorporate Currere
2.3 Extending and Deepening My Study using Currere
References
Chapter 3: My Story (the Regressive Movement)
3.1 Background
3.2 My Childhood – Seeking Connection with My Busy Father
3.2.1 Playing Ball
3.2.2 Reflections – Throw and Catch as an Analogy for the Legacy Process
3.2.3 Table Tennis
3.2.4 Provincial Piano Competitions
3.2.5 Reflections about Piano
3.2.6 Trouble at School for Conducting Business
3.2.7 The Rise of Father’s Business
3.2.8 An Opportunity to Sell the Family Business
3.2.9 The 5 Professions to Which to Aspire
3.2.10 What I Wanted to be While Growing Up
3.3 Growing up in the Shadow of the Family Business
3.3.1 Asking for a Computer
3.3.2 Asking for Summer Work in Business
3.3.3 Moving to Vancouver
3.3.4 The Toll the Move Took on My Father
3.3.5 Seeking Father Figure – Mentors
3.3.6 My Attitude Toward Money
3.4 My Formative Years – Missed Opportunity to Connect through Work and Family Business
3.4.1 Encouraged to Go the Corporate Route (Intrapreneurship vs. Entrepreneurship)
3.4.2 Working for My Father (2004–2005)
3.4.3 On Control and Power (一山不能二虎)
3.4.4 What is Our Business?
3.4.5 Opportunity for Stable Employment at a Crown Corporation
3.4.6 Starting a Fashion Design Business (Wabi Fashion Design)
3.4.7 Dad Retires
3.4.8 Dad Diagnosed with Degenerative Neurological Disease
3.4.9 In the Face of Helplessness
3.5 Becoming a Father – Finding Myself as a Man
3.5.1 Ultreia is Born (First Grandchild)
3.5.2 Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation (SAP)
3.5.3 Interest in Life Review Frameworks – Interview Father
3.5.4 Father’s Reflections on Being Son and Relating to Father
3.5.5 My Father’s Failure to Take Over His Dad’s Business
3.5.6 My Father – Overshadow or Source of Illumination
3.5.7 Leaving ICBC to Start a Consulting Business
3.6 Disorientation – Tragedy Strikes
3.6.1 My Father Passes
3.6.2 My Wife Leaves Me
3.6.3 Seeking Father Figure in a Time of Crisis – Calling My Father-in-Law
3.6.4 My Daughter Asks Whether I Love Her More than the Business
3.6.5 Breakdown in the Highlands of Scotland
3.6.6 Transformation – Butterfly
3.6.7 Dealing with Child Protective Services – Dealing with Models of Parenting
3.6.8 Aspirations of Children and Fathers
3.7 My Consulting Experiences as Mirror for My Experiences with My Father
3.7.1 Primogeniture Responsibility
3.7.2 Difficulty for Founder to Retire
3.7.3 Common Desire for Respect
3.7.4 Communication Challenges
3.7.5 Differing Motivations and Appeal of Family Business
Notes
References
Chapter 4: Visioning (Progressive Movement)
4.1 Using Nature as Part of Meditative Reflection on the Future
4.2 Obituary for Samuel Chen (Delivered by His Sister)
4.3 Eulogy #1 by a Daughter
4.4 Eulogy #2 by Another Daughter
4.5 Epithet
Reference
Chapter 5: Bringing It Together (Analytical and Synthetical Movements)
5.1 Family Business
5.1.1 The Meaning of Family Business to Me
5.1.1.1 Livelihood (Means toward Ends)
5.1.1.2 Connection
5.1.2 Freedom
5.1.3 Unspoken Costs
5.1.3.1 Parental Absenteeism (Missing Out on Major Transitions)
5.1.3.2 Personal Health (Emotional and Physical)
5.1.3.3 State of Unrest (Addiction to the Frenetic Pace of Life)
5.1.3.4 Relational Deficits and Missed Connections
5.1.3.5 Sacrifices to Personal Development and Interests Outside of Business
5.1.4 Interpreting My Father’s Final Analysis
5.1.5 Challenges and Opportunities to Learn Together in Family Business
5.1.5.1 Recognizing Free Will, Agency, and Individual Differences
5.1.5.2 Learning through Trials or Suffering
5.1.5.3 Handling Crisis Together
5.1.5.4 Role Permeation and Being Able to Wear Different Hats
5.1.5.5 Asking the Why (Having Different Why’s)
5.1.5.6 Developing Mastery and Competencies for Today and Tomorrow
5.1.6 Synthesis
5.1.6.1 For Me, Family Business Is One Choice among Many As a Means of Livelihood
5.1.6.2 There Is a Curriculum Opportunity Represented by the Concept of Legacy, Especially with the Added Intersection of Family Business
5.1.6.3 There are Unspoken Costs for Pursuing a Life in Business
5.2 Legacy
5.2.1 Cultural Nuance
5.2.1.1 传承 or 承传 – The Order of Transmitting and Receiving
5.2.1.2 What Does It Mean to be a Successor? (继承者)
5.2.1.3 What Would Make My Father Proud? (我以你为荣)
5.2.2 The Good, Bad and Ugly (Unconsciously Passing on Struggles)
5.2.3 Synthesis
5.2.3.1 My Father’s Legacy Is Connected to Mine and My Legacy Is Connected to My Daughters’
5.2.3.2 The Good, Bad and Ugly Can Be Passed on as Part of Legacy
5.2.3.3 Revisiting Legacy, Both That Which Has Been Passed onto Me as Well as the One I Hope to Leave, Helps Clarify Intent for How I Want to Live
5.3 The Father That I Want to Be
5.3.1 Toward a New Archetype
5.3.2 Ordered Relationships Where Children Have Priority
5.3.3 Dinner Table and Transitions
5.3.4 Remembering Time That I Was a Son
5.3.5 Providing Affirmation and Approval
5.3.6 Discovering and Playing to Strengths
5.3.7 Less Directive; More Coaching – The Difference between Mentors and a Father
5.3.8 Synthesis
5.3.8.1 Loved, Approved, Affirmed for Who My Daughters Are
5.3.8.2 Discovering Joy in Learning and Growing Together
5.3.8.3 More than a Provider, I Want to Support My Daughters at Major Transition Points in Their Lives
5.3.8.4 I Want to Model a Person on the Journey of Human Development
References
Chapter 6: Legacy as a Learning Opportunity
6.1 Guiding Principles – Key Tenets around Which a Curriculum Is Built
6.1.1 Journey to Full Personhood
6.1.2 Free Agents
6.1.3 Unique Human Beings
6.1.4 People of Three Tenses (Currere)
6.1.5 One Option among Many
6.1.6 Temporary Suspension/Bracketing to Learn
6.1.7 Mutuality in Intergenerational Learning
6.1.8 Communicating to be Known and to Know
6.1.9 Love as Motivation and Foundation
6.2 Applying Currere and Incorporating Business over Time
6.2.1 Timeline/Runway of Life
6.2.2 Transitions and Opportunities for Reflection
6.3 Relational Learning between Father and Son
6.3.1 Exploring Dialogue
6.3.2 Roleplay: Wearing Different Hats (Practicing Suspension)
6.4 Learning the Business Together
6.4.1 Taking a Page from Business Process Re-Engineering
6.4.2 Expanding the Learning Network
6.5 Incorporating Different Elements into Sample Workshop Series
References
Chapter 7: Concluding Remarks
7.1 Next Steps
References
Index
