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This article is an introduction to the entire issue. The seven papers which follow are brought together within the categories of psychocultural orientation, kin-oriented social organization, segmentary sociopolitical organization host culture environment, and foreign born generation. The social organization of overseas Chinese communities must be adaptive to the cultural environment of their host nations. Yet the resulting minority institutions have segmentary and kinship oriented patterns that bear similarities from country to country and retain an affinity with Chinese tradition. The alien host culture also may determine the course of assimilation or separation of overseas Chinese. The bicultural conflicts facing young overseas Chinese, as well as the social organization of their communities, show a psychological core of Chinese ethnicity, consisting of the attributes of continuity, inclusiveness, authority, and asexuality.

This paper analyzes the structures and functions of social organizations in thirteen mainland, offshore, and overseas Chinese communities. Based on the principle of recruitment, five structural types account for the social organization of these communities: kinship, residence, surname, origin, and contract. Mainland and offshore rural communities are organized in terms of kinship, residence, and contract. Overseas urban communities tend to be organized in terms of surname, origin, and contract. Marginal, rural or urban communities are organized only in terms of contract. Structural and functional data indicate that surname is a substitute for kinship, and origin is a substitute for reside nee in the organization of overseas communities, so that the familiar is a substitute for the familial in Chinese social organization. Of the 51 functions assumed by the organizations of these communities, some are determined by subsistence, others by rural-urban or mainland offshore differences. Patterns of the functional substitution indicate an interchangeability, by which almost any or all recruitment types of social organization may in some community or other be responsible for a given function. This interchangeability aids the familial-familiar orientation, not only in the creation of new organizations, but also in the retention of members on a life long basis. Structures, functions, and substitutions show a substantial presence of the Hsu attributes of continuity, inclusiveness, authority, and asexuality in overseas as well as mainland Chinese communities.