Financial Crisis and Transformation of Korean Business Groups

Financial Crisis and Transformation of Korean Business Groups

Author: Sea-Jin Chang

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-04-28

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 1139440071

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Sea-Jin Chang argues that the Korean financial crisis of 1997 was due to the inertia of both the business groups known as chaebols and the Korean government which prevented adaptation to changing external environments. Once the Korean government stopped central economic planning and pursued economic liberalization in the 1980s, the transition created a void under which neither the government nor markets could monitor chaebols' investment activities. The intricate web of cross-shareholding, debt guarantees, and vertical integration resulted in extensive cross-subsidization and kept chaebols from shedding unprofitable businesses. The government's continued interventions in banks' lending practices created 'moral hazards' for both chaebols and banks. This treatment demonstrates how the structure of chaebols later inhibited other adaptations and for all practical purposes became nearly dysfunctional. The book argues that restructuring of chaebols should focus on improving corporate governance systems. After such restructuring, the author predicts, chaebols will re-emerge as stronger, more focused global players.


The Politics of Economic Adjustment

The Politics of Economic Adjustment

Author: Stephan Haggard

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-06-05

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 0691188033

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the 1980s some developing countries adopted orthodox market-oriented policies in response to international economic crises, others experimented with alternative programs, and still others failed to develop coherent adjustment strategies of any sort. Building on the case studies in Economic Crisis and Policy Choice, these essays offer comparative analysis of these divergent experiences with macroeconomic stabilization and structural adjustment. Barbara Stallings and Miles Kahler explore the external pressures on governments. Peter Evans and John Waterbury examine the role of the state in the adjustment process, Evans through the lens of earlier historical experience with economic restructuring, Waterbury by focusing on the politics of privatization. Joan Nelson analyzes the politics of income distribution in the adjustment process, and Haggard and Kaufman investigate the political correlates of inflation and stabilization. A final essay assesses the prospects for combining market-oriented reforms with political democratization.


The Changing Face of Korean Management

The Changing Face of Korean Management

Author: Chris Rowley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-05-07

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1135277702

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Part of the successful Routledge ‘Working in Asia’ series, The Changing Face of Korean Management focuses on a country that is predicted by some experts to become the world’s third richest by 2025. South Korea, with its thriving telecommunications and automotive industries, and increasing trade links with China, survived the 1997 Asian Economic Crisis better than most. This important textbook explores the key areas of management in this pivotal country in the region, including: Human Resource Management Marketing Operations Finance Strategy Overseas affiliates Small firms and entrepreneurship Women Including case studies and interviews with front-line Korean managers to enable a real ‘voice’ to emerge, and written by native academics, this is a complete analysis of the current state of management structures in South Korea. It is important reading for all students of business and management interested in Asia.


Vicious Circuits

Vicious Circuits

Author: Joseph Jonghyun Jeon

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2019-03-12

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1503608468

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In December of 1997, the International Monetary Fund announced the largest bailout package in its history, aimed at stabilizing the South Korean economy in response to a credit and currency crisis of the same year. Vicious Circuits examines what it terms "Korea's IMF Cinema," the decade of cinema following that crisis, in order to think through the transformations of global political economy at the end of the American century. It argues that one of the most dominant traits of the cinema that emerged after the worst economic crisis in the history of South Korea was its preoccupation with economic phenomena. As the quintessentially corporate art form—made as much in the boardroom as in the studio—film in this context became an ideal site for thinking through the global political economy in the transitional moment of American decline and Chinese ascension. With an explicit focus of state economic policy, IMF cinema did not just depict the economy; it also was this economy's material embodiment. That is, it both represented economic developments and was itself an important sector in which the same pressures and changes affecting the economy at large were at work. Joseph Jonghyun Jeon's window on Korea provides a peripheral but crucial perspective on the operations of late US hegemony and the contradictions that ultimately corrode it.


The Park Chung Hee Era

The Park Chung Hee Era

Author: Byung-Kook Kim

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-03-11

Total Pages: 753

ISBN-13: 0674265092

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In 1961 South Korea was mired in poverty. By 1979 it had a powerful industrial economy and a vibrant civil society in the making, which would lead to a democratic breakthrough eight years later. The transformation took place during the years of Park Chung Hee's presidency. Park seized power in a coup in 1961 and ruled as a virtual dictator until his assassination in October 1979. He is credited with modernizing South Korea, but at a huge political and social cost. South Korea's political landscape under Park defies easy categorization. The state was predatory yet technocratic, reform-minded yet quick to crack down on dissidents in the name of political order. The nation was balanced uneasily between opposition forces calling for democratic reforms and the Park government's obsession with economic growth. The chaebol (a powerful conglomerate of multinationals based in South Korea) received massive government support to pioneer new growth industries, even as a nationwide campaign of economic shock therapy-interest hikes, devaluation, and wage cuts-met strong public resistance and caused considerable hardship. This landmark volume examines South Korea's era of development as a study in the complex politics of modernization. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources in both English and Korean, these essays recover and contextualize many of the ambiguities in South Korea's trajectory from poverty to a sustainable high rate of economic growth.


The Corporation As Technology

The Corporation As Technology

Author: Christopher M. Bruner

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0197635172

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Introduction and overview -- Defining the corporation and Corporate Law -- Contextual drivers of difference -- Enduring controversies in Corporate Law -- The corporation as technology -- Corporate pathologies and corporate sustainability -- Re-calibrating governance : industry-by-industry approaches -- Re-imagining corporate accountability -- Conclusions.


Rethinking the East Asian Miracle

Rethinking the East Asian Miracle

Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2001-06-01

Total Pages: 538

ISBN-13: 0195216008

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume provides highly illuminating, analytic perspectives on key facets of the East Asian economies. It discusses weaknesses in the financial sector, corporate governance, exchange rate and trade policies, regulatory capability, and proposes remedies. Rethinking the East Asian Miracle is an indispensable book for all those with an interest in East Asia's prospects in the early decades of the new century.