Are family business and start-up good work-life fulfillment career choices for young professionals?5/8/2017 It is not unfamiliar, especially in Southeast Asia business context, to mention about family business. The idea of next generation in the family to inherit the business legacy is a common sense among private business owners. From small scale business like local restaurants which has its second or third generations in the family to operate to big scale conglomerates like Samsung in Korea or giant cooperation like CK Hutchison Holdings in Hongkong, we can find family business style under different shapes and shades. For young capable professionals, one of the critical questions for the career path choices is, to be in the cooperation environment, or to start their own business. To young professionals who has their family background involves in business field, there is one more thing to ask, to be in the cooperation, to start their own business, or to inherit the established one in their family. For giant family business like Samsung, seems like few options are available for the next generation, other than to build their own business capacity in responding to inherit the legacy of their family company. For other small private business, there are different options to consider: to inherit the legacy, to not inherit, or to create something new. They are the options for young capable professionals who have the established family business from previous generations. For others, create a new family business and start-up is one of the choices for their professional career path. For a while, the ideas of family business are considered passé and inactive career path choices, is coming back with certain reasons, mostly related to work-life fulfillment. There are certain reasons for the turn-around option of family business style and start-up for young professionals. First, the satisfaction in the cooperation for work-life balance and freedom is limited. Second, the desire to create their own paths in career development is stronger than the secured choices to follow someone else’s career path. This tendency is growing, especially among capable young generation who shows their interests in start-up and entrepreneurship. Third, for professionals who has established family business to backup, has the advantages to grow a business on their own. Fourth, to who creates the new family business on their own, the synergy between family members create a bonding working environment is a significant difference in compare with other regular business company. However, there are also certain challenges which not everyone is willing to take. For young professionals who want to get out of the restricted time commitment, found themselves in no-limit time commitment. The difference is, instead of working on someone else’s schedule and agenda, they work for themselves. The idea of freedom in work seems appealing at first, turn into a real challenge since they are running after their own agenda. The exhaustion is even more because there was no time restricted, and no clear boundary between professional life and personal life. For who has the advantages of established family business support to have their own, they have to run both the family business along with their own business. The struggle to maintain the commitment for both business is even more challenging. The benefit of standing on an established shoulder of the “mother” company compensate with the time and capacity to contribute to both commitment. For who creates the new family business and start-up, the struggle is slightly different, yet not less challenging. The ideas of companion in work and in life sound fascinating as first, became a no time-out show for people who involve. Family bonding creates sparkle synergy to come up with company strategy or work commitment, yet it can cause serious conflict when difference ideas clashes among others. If it involves newly married couples, the line to draw between work and life even slimmer. Moreover, if the married couple has children, it is another thing to top up on their plate. The questions here is, can family business and start-up be able to taken into consideration for work-life fulfilled career path for young professionals? To some young capable and potential professionals, saying NO for family business and start-up is the choice for their career path. They can see themselves ladder up in cooperation environment with a clear boundary between work, life, and relationships to set up, and they have few thoughts on how to run their own business. To some others, after saying NO at first to their established family business, they returned into their familiar context, after the unfitted experience in cooperation environment. To others, family business and start-ups are the choices they make, even if it is a leap of faith for everyone who involves. With the failure rate of start-up is around 90%, yet it is still the decision they take, among other available options and information they have, raise the question: Is family business and start-up a good opportunity for work-life fulfillment in business field?
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AuthorI am Thao Le, one of the GISTers of APLP G16. I am interested in female leadership in entrepreneurship and small business. Thank you for your time to stop by the online corner of my GIST journey. ArchivesCategories |