Inclusive partners? Internationalising South Korea’s chaebol through corporate social responsibility-linked development cooperation

Abstract

In recent years, non-traditional or ‘emerging’ donors such as South Korea have organised their development cooperation models in a manner that seeks to complement the capacities of the private sector by extending the overseas activities of domestic businesses. To better understand this process, this article examines the role of South Korea’s large, family-led conglomerates (chaebol) in its growing international development sector. In particular, we focus on how the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been used to link the role of its large, and frequently scandal-ridden, private companies to international development, and, by extension, how it has helped to internationalise state–business networks long associated with the Korean developmental state. We examine two strategies through which this has been carried out. The first is by extending the logic of creating shared value (CSV, a derivative of CSR) to aid and infrastructure projects in which chaebol and other state-linked businesses have participated. The second is by directly embedding CSR-based aid initiatives in the value chains of the specific chaebol themselves.

Keywords:

• development cooperation
• emerging donors
• corporate social responsibility
• chaebol
• Korea
• developmental state

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 This research used a case study method that has sought to account for changes to Korean development cooperation policies and emerging trends. Its method of case construction is primarily based on an analysis of policy documents and secondary materials, but is also indebted to discussions and interviews with Korean development practitioners, policymakers, critics and aid advocacy organisations undertaken between 2015 and 2019 as part of associated research by the authors on Korea’s development cooperation policies.

Additional information

Funding

Research for this article has benefitted from the support of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017S1A3A2066514) and the Leverhulme Trust (RF-2018-263\7).

Notes on contributors

Farwa Sial

Farwa Sial is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Global Development Institute (GDI), University of Manchester. Her research interests include comparative development and state capitalism, private-sector and international development, industrial policy and corporations in developed and developing countries. She is a Steering Group Convenor at Diversifying and Decolonising Economics and DSA Business and Development Group and Co-editor of Developing Economics.

Jamie Doucette

Jamie Doucette is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography in the Department of Geography, University of Manchester. His interests include the political economy of development and democratisation, the nexus between developmentalism and urban space, and labour geography. He is Co-editor (with Bae-gyoon Park) of Developmentalist Cities? Interrogating Urban Developmentalism in East Asia (Brill, 2019) and publishes widely in geography, political economy and area studies journals.