Understanding a Core Comparative Governance Challenge in Asia: Business v. Family Norms

Many countries in Asia find their economies dominated by family businesses. While economists consider this a concentrated shareholding issue and a rational solution to the weak formal institutions, there are other equally if not more important explanatory frameworks. This talk explores the different value systems at work and hypothesizes approaches, divisions, and reallocations which may allow the best of both to emerge.

Benedict Sheehy is a Professor of Law at the University of Canberra and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. He is a corporate law specialist and an interdisciplinary scholar having been trained in law, social sciences, and the humanities. He has over 100 scholarly publications, many of which are with leading journals and presses. In Asia, he has taught in China, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. He been a Visiting Professor at the University of Bologna, the University of the Philippines, Diponegoro University and Ningbo University. Benedict holds the BTh, MA, JD, MA, LLM and PhD.