Clans On The Run

Even with the pressure rising, many family empires are resisting change. "A small percentage of leaders is open and willing to face the challenge," says corporate-reform advocate Harvey Chang, president of Taiwan Cellular Corp., the island's largest mobile-service provider. "The rest just don't understand it." In the following report, TIME looks at five wealthy families who recognize that Asia's time-honored ways of doing business may no longer be tenable. These venerable houses, from the Lis of Hong Kong to the Moris of Japan, are to varying degrees tackling internal change, even to the point of considering the ultimate sacrifice: delegating top management to outside professionals. --With reporting by Joyce Huang/Taipei and Michael Schuman/Hong Kong