Family Business Generation in Medan, Indonesia with Efforts to Adapt to the Changes in Government System

This research paper will focus on family business from generation to generation in Medan which passed several reigns in Indonesia, from colonial times to nowadays. The first generations are Tjong brothers, Tjong Yong Hian and Tjong Fu Nan (Tjong A Fie), which came to Indonesia in the Dutch colonial period. The second generation faced the Indonesian independence revolution, and the third generation faced the independence of Indonesia. Enterprises and their way of doing business should be able to adjust to the political circumstances at the time. Search on the challenges of doing business and their challenges in the face of an economic and political situation are different, requiring a very high adaptability. This research adapted descriptive method by collecting data from interviews and available bibliography. The results showed that the existence of a generation which is able to adapt and the generation that failed to overcome situations that arise. Constraints in this study are the lack of information and knowledge of the next generation about the state of the first generation, and less complete data is available from libraries. Hopefully, this research can be continued by other researchers, and also as a material for subsequent research.