Resource Extension and Status Identity: Marriage Ties among Family Business Groups in an Emerging Economy

Intermarriage ties among business families remain underexamined, especially when such ties involve complex concerns over firm resources and family social status. The authors develop a framework that specifies how business families’ resource considerations promote marriage ties and how such strategic effects vary among families with distinct social status standings during market transition. Data on dyadic marriage ties among large family business groups in Taiwan from 1973 to 2010 demonstrate that marriage ties are jointly driven by strategic concerns about resources and the social status dynamics of the controlling families: two business groups are more likely to intermarry when the marriage provides complementary resources and controlling families have elite social status. However, the impact of complementary resources is less pronounced for elite families. Moreover, when external market institutions develop, the positive effect of complementary resources decays, whereas that of elite social status remains.