How are family businesses involved in the organizational network of the Communist Party of China: the perspective of organizational sociology

Abstract Embedding its own branches in private enterprises is the governance strategy that the Communist Party of China (CPC) controls the grassroots society. This study proposes a framework by incorporating the socioemotional wealth theory into neo-institutionalism to explain how are family businesses involved in the organizational network of the CPC. Findings reveal that there is an organizational isomorphism that the coverage of party organizations expanded from non-family businesses to family businesses. Furthermore, family businesses are not likely to establish party organizations when coercive pressures are low. However, this resistance strategy sharply disappears when coercive pressures are high, and joining state-backed industry associations and mimicking others’ practice both are also positive factors motivating family businesses to establish party organizations, which means that the coercive, normative and mimetic mechanisms jointly shape the organizational isomorphism. This study contributes to the literature of neo-institutionalism and sheds new light on the state-society relationship in China.