Corporate governance reforms amidst economic maturation and democratization: the case of the Korean chaebol since the 1990s

ABSTRACT

This collection of research deals with a broad issue of business organizations and history that awaits unremitting refinements and improvements by scholars who always find fresh enigmas that might wobble the established theories in the field. A new conundrum about South Korea and its conglomerate businesses – the chaebol – is its organizational resilience that seems to protect them from the relentless attention from the government and civic interest groups as to issues such as their so-called ‘backward’ corporate governance structures. Of course, this is a conundrum as it is this very chaebol corporate governance that helped create the ‘Miracle on the Han’ and unprecedented wealth for the nation during its entire postwar history. Therefore, this special issue features empirical studies of the chaebol corporate governance and its evolution with a variety of foci. These are: (a) rent-sharing, (b) succession, (c) outsider board members and (d) the reforms after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Corporate governance
• reforms
• chaebol
• South Korea
• rent-sharing
• CEO succession
• outside directors
• Asian financial crisis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

YongWook Jun

YongWook Jun is Invited Professor at Business School, Seoul National University. He is an academician, businessman and consultant, having worked for both universities, business corporations and consulting firms in the past 40 years. He was Dean of Global Learning Institute, Sookmyung Women’s University. Prior to this, he was Vice President of Sejong University, Vice President of Woosong University and Dean of SolBridge International School of Business. Prof. Jun has served as non-Executive Director, counsellor and consultant for many major Korean corporations including Hynix, Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motors, and SK Telecommunications. His capabilities are balanced in both practice and academia. He has also published numerous articles and textbooks in the field of International Business.

Chris Rowley

Chris Rowley is with the Kellogg College, University of Oxford, UK, he is Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Education, Tohoku University, Japan, and he is Professor Emeritus at Bayes Business School, City University of London, UK. He has over 30 years’ experience in university systems in the UK, Europe and Asia and has won several international grants. He is the editor of three journals, including Asia Pacific Business Review, and has published over 700 articles, books, chapters, and practitioner pieces. He regularly provides interviews, expert comments and opinion pieces to the international media, including news services, TV, radio and practitioner outlets.

Ingyu Oh

Ingyu Oh is Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Business Communication at Kansai Gaidai University, Osaka, Japan. Before coming to Japan, he held professorial and other positions in international business and organizational studies at Korea University, Bristol Business School, UC Berkeley, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, the University of Waikato and the University of Oregon. He has published numerous books, monographs and journal articles in the area of organizational studies, pop culture industries, innovation and globalization. He is the former President of the World Association for Hallyu Studies and Associate Editor of Asia Pacific Business Review.