Under Japanese civil code, business families with no son to carry on the family name can turn to an unusual solution: adopt one. Around 10 per cent of business-owning families with no male heir adopt a son, says Kazunori Kaneko of the consultancy Business Succession Center.
Japan is not the only country where family businesses will go to some lengths to hand over control of the company to a man. Nor is it the only country where family business leaders can be determined to hand over to someone who will continue the family name, although this practice is not often seen today.
“No Chinese man would want to change his name,” says Annie Koh, professor of finance at Singapore Management University. “But in the past few years because of the one-child policy in China, if the family firm is fixated with their own surname, in rare cases you have found a man who will change his name.”