Family-owned business groups have long dominated the East Asian corporate landscape. This paper looks at the dominance of business groups in the Philippines and tries to explain their dominance by their role as filling the institutional voids left by government due to decades of political and economic instability. The paper also discusses the applicability of agency theory in the country. Finally, the paper looks at the downside to this common form of corporate organizing and how family businesses reflect the oligarchical nature of the countryâs stratified society
