Currere and Legacy in the Context of Family Business: Towards a New Theory of Intergenerational Learning

170 Pages·2023·5.667 MB·English

by  Samuel Chen

Currere and Legacy in the Context of
Family Business
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.
Samuel Chen is Principal and Consultant at Connected Legacies Learning
Ltd. He completed his doctoral studies at Simon Fraser University,
Vancouver, Canada.
Studies in Curriculum Theory Series
Series Editor: William F. Pinar, University of British Columbia, Canada
In this age of multimedia information overload, scholars and students
may not be able to keep up with the proliferation of different topical,
trendy book series in the field of curriculum theory. It will be a relief to
know that one publisher offers a balanced, solid, forward-looking series
devoted to significant and enduring scholarship, as opposed to a narrow
range of topics or a single approach or point of view. This series is con-
ceived as the series busy scholars and students can trust and depend on to
deliver important scholarship in the various "discourses" that comprise
the increasingly complex field of curriculum theory.
The range of the series is both broad (all of curriculum theory) and
limited (only important, lasting scholarship) – including but not confined
to historical, philosophical, critical, multicultural, feminist, comparative,
international, aesthetic, and spiritual topics and approaches. Books in
this series are intended for scholars and for students at the doctoral and,
in some cases, master’s levels.
Curricular and Architectural Encounters with W.G. Sebald
Unsettling Complacency, Reconstructing Subjectivity
Edited by Teresa Strong-Wilson, Ricardo L. Castro, Warren Crichlow,
Amarou Yoder
In Search of Responsibility as Education
Traversing Banal and Radical Terrains
Hannah Spector
Currere and Legacy in the Context of Family Business
Towards a New Theory of Intergenerational Learning
Samuel Chen
Curriculum Histories in Place, in Person, in Practice
The Louisiana State University Curriculum Theory Project
Edited by Petra Hendry, Molly Quinn, Roland Mitchell, Jacqueline Bach
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.
routledge.com/Studies-in-Curriculum-Theory-Series/book-series/
LEASCTS
Currere and Legacy in the
Context of Family Business
Towards a New Theory of
Intergenerational Learning
Samuel Chen
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2023 Samuel Chen
The right of Samuel Chen to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-1-032-42648-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-42697-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-36384-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003363842
Typeset in Sabon
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Contents
1 Prologue 1
2 Methodology 4
2.1 The Decision to Use a Qualitative Approach 4
2.2 Selecting Autoethnography as a Method of Inquiry 6
2.2.1 Evocative Genre of Autoethnography 9
2.2.2 Wrestling with ‘Ethno’ Part of Autoethnography
and Situating Self 10
2.2.3 How to Evaluate? 14
2.2.4 The Decision to Incorporate Currere 16
2.3 Extending and Deepening My Study using Currere 17
3 My Story (the Regressive Movement) 25
3.1 Background 25
3.2 My Childhood – Seeking Connection with My Busy
Father 26
3.2.1 Playing Ball 26
3.2.2 Reflections – Throw and Catch as an Analogy
for the Legacy Process 28
3.2.3 Table Tennis 29
3.2.4 Provincial Piano Competitions 30
3.2.5 Reflections about Piano 31
3.2.6 Trouble at School for Conducting Business 32
3.2.7 The Rise of Father’s Business 33
3.2.8 An Opportunity to Sell the Family Business 34
3.2.9 The 5 Professions to Which to Aspire 35
3.2.10 What I Wanted to be While Growing Up 36
3.3 Growing up in the Shadow of the Family Business 37
3.3.1 Asking for a Computer 37
3.3.2 Asking for Summer Work in Business 38
vi Contents
3.3.3 Moving to Vancouver 39
3.3.4 The Toll the Move Took on My Father 39
3.3.5 Seeking Father Figure – Mentors 40
3.3.6 My Attitude Toward Money 41
3.4 My Formative Years – Missed Opportunity to Connect
through Work and Family Business 42
3.4.1 Encouraged to Go the Corporate Route
(Intrapreneurship vs. Entrepreneurship) 42
3.4.2 Working for My Father (2004–2005) 43
3.4.3 On Control and Power (一山不能二虎) 44
3.4.4 What is Our Business? 45
3.4.5 Opportunity for Stable Employment at a
Crown Corporation 48
3.4.6 Starting a Fashion Design Business
(Wabi Fashion Design) 49
3.4.7 Dad Retires 50
3.4.8 Dad Diagnosed with Degenerative
Neurological Disease 51
3.4.9 In the Face of Helplessness 52
3.5 Becoming a Father – Finding Myself as a Man 53
3.5.1 Ultreia is Born (First Grandchild) 53
3.5.2 Enterprise Resource Planning
Implementation (SAP) 54
3.5.3 Interest in Life Review Frameworks –
Interview Father 55
3.5.4 Father’s Reflections on Being Son and
Relating to Father 56
3.5.5 My Father’s Failure to Take Over His Dad’s
Business 56
3.5.6 My Father – Overshadow or Source of
Illumination 57
3.5.7 Leaving ICBC to Start a Consulting Business 57
3.6 Disorientation – Tragedy Strikes 59
3.6.1 My Father Passes 59
3.6.2 My Wife Leaves Me 61
3.6.3 Seeking Father Figure in a Time of Crisis –
Calling My Father-in-Law 62
3.6.4 My Daughter Asks Whether I Love Her More
than the Business 64
3.6.5 Breakdown in the Highlands of Scotland 65
3.6.6 Transformation – Butterfly 65
Contents vii
3.6.7 Dealing with Child Protective Services – Dealing
with Models of Parenting 66
3.6.8 Aspirations of Children and Fathers 67
3.7 My Consulting Experiences as Mirror for My
Experiences with My Father 68
3.7.1 Primogeniture Responsibility 69
3.7.2 Difficulty for Founder to Retire 69
3.7.3 Common Desire for Respect 69
3.7.4 Communication Challenges 69
3.7.5 Differing Motivations and Appeal of
Family Business 70
4 Visioning (Progressive Movement) 72
4.1 Using Nature as Part of Meditative Reflection
on the Future 72
4.2 Obituary for Samuel Chen (Delivered by His Sister) 77
4.3 Eulogy #1 by a Daughter 80
4.4 Eulogy #2 by Another Daughter 83
4.5 Epithet 86
5 Bringing It Together (Analytical and
Synthetical Movements) 87
5.1 Family Business 87
5.1.1 The Meaning of Family Business to Me 87
5.1.2 Freedom 90
5.1.3 Unspoken Costs 91
5.1.4 Interpreting My Father’s Final Analysis 98
5.1.5 Challenges and Opportunities to Learn Together
in Family Business 101
5.1.6 Synthesis 110
5.2 Legacy 112
5.2.1 Cultural Nuance 112
5.2.2 The Good, Bad and Ugly (Unconsciously
Passing on Struggles) 116
5.2.3 Synthesis 123
5.3 The Father That I Want to Be 124
5.3.1 Toward a New Archetype 124
5.3.2 Ordered Relationships Where Children have
Priority 125
5.3.3 Dinner Table and Transitions 126
5.3.4 Remembering Time That I Was a Son 127
viii Contents
5.3.5 Providing Affirmation and Approval 128
5.3.6 Discovering and Playing to Strengths 129
5.3.7 Less Directive; More Coaching – The Difference
between Mentors and a Father 129
5.3.8 Synthesis 130
6 Legacy as a Learning Opportunity 132
6.1 Guiding Principles – Key Tenets around Which a
Curriculum Is Built 134
6.1.1 Journey to Full Personhood 135
6.1.2 Free Agents 135
6.1.3 Unique Human Beings 135
6.1.4 People of Three Tenses (Currere) 136
6.1.5 One Option among Many 136
6.1.6 Temporary Suspension/Bracketing to Learn 136
6.1.7 Mutuality in Intergenerational Learning 136
6.1.8 Communicating to be Known and to Know 137
6.1.9 Love as Motivation and Foundation 137
6.2 Applying Currere and Incorporating Business over
Time 137
6.2.1 Timeline/Runway of Life 139
6.2.2 Transitions and Opportunities for Reflection 140
6.3 Relational Learning between Father and Son 141
6.3.1 Exploring Dialogue 141
6.3.2 Roleplay: Wearing Different Hats (Practicing
Suspension) 142
6.4 Learning the Business Together 143
6.4.1 Taking a Page from Business Process
Re-Engineering 143
6.4.2 Expanding the Learning Network 144
6.5 Incorporating Different Elements into
Sample Workshop Series 144
7 Concluding Remarks 148
7.1 Next Steps 154
Index 157
Prologue
Almost a decade ago as I began a program leading to a Doctorate in
Education with a focus on Transformational Change, we were introduced
to the concept of transformational learning and change at three levels:
personal, organizational and social. At that time, I was working at a large
Crown Corporation and was responsible for corporate learning and
organization development strategy. It had been seven years since I had
decided to join the Corporation instead of taking over a family business
that provided consulting services to municipal governments.
When I enrolled in the doctoral program, I had set out to study change
as manifest at an organizational level. I was focused on looking at orga-
nizational transformation with a focus on corporate learning. Ironically,
shortly after I began the doctoral program, I was laid off at the Crown
Corporation due to organizational changes that I had both planned and
executed.
After leaving my role, through some planning but mostly happen-
chance, I started consulting for a few family businesses. However, after a
few years of operations, the convergence of three events including the loss
of my father, an unexpected and contentious divorce, and the sudden
need to cease my international consulting business to be home with my
young daughters led to a grinding halt to life.
And so, through the different evolutions of this thesis, I found that my
study of transformation, which began at an organizational level, slowly
began to shift downward and inward to the family business and to a
personal level. I became increasingly interested in the inter-relationship
between business, family and our identities as both fathers and sons and
each entity’s personal journey. I began asking the following questions:
• What would a healthy relationship look like between the business
and a father and son within a family business context?
• Beyond the binary outcomes of succession of a business, what would
a lasting legacy look like between father and son?
DOI: 10.4324/9781003363842-1