自清乾隆中葉伊始，西婆羅洲(West Borneo)聚族而居的華人，在陌生的土侯番邦及其環境條件下，以公司的型態組織成一自給自足的經濟單位和社會團體。其內涵，除生產協作用以維持生計經濟外，還包括賦稅徭役用以規範權利義務、自訂法制用以懲治作奸犯科、廟堂神祠用以教化忠孝節義、武裝防衛用心維護公司安全，基本上，對內既和衷共濟，對外可防禦抗敵。公司的組織結構，係承襲於中國閩粵村社聚族而居的特性，係建構在相同地緣和相近血緣的紐帶上，類此立足在異邦的共生型態，實為形成海外華人社會的主要肇因。本文藉歷史研究法及相關的社會科學理論方法，為上述旨趣，提出恰如其份的歷史解釋。
From the middle period of the Qing dynasty, Chinese clustered to live in West Borneo. Under the foreign circumstances they built up a self-sufficient economic institution and organized it in a way of company: Chinese Kongsi. The connotation of it included, besides setting up the cooperative function of production to maintain their livelihood, establishing the rights and obligations of compulsory labor to regulate taxes, the legal system to judge right and wrong, and both temples and shrines to teach the matters of filial respect, loyalty and righteousness, and an armed guard to secure its own homestead.The Kongsi's organization structure, inheriting the characteristics of its hometown community, based on the basis of people out of the same geographical and blood relation. It played the main role for overseas Chinese societies to settle down as a symbiotic type in the foreign countries. Through history methodology and the methods of related social science theory the propositions made in this article might be a thoughtful historical explanation.
