South Korea's post-war economic success is a well-known story. However, its development in the past two decades is relatively less investigated. By reviewing key economic issues in South Korea's economy today, this book offers an input to the research of contemporary South Korea, in particular the country's economic development and its external economic relations.This book provides an analytical overview of key issues in contemporary South Korean economy. The timely and in-depth study presented in the book examines the main reasons behind South Korea's economic slowdown in recent years, the economic and social impact following chaebol's growing business expansion, free trade agreements with China and the United States, the development of income inequality, the ageing demography and the Korean government's policy response to overcome the current economic difficulties.
What new directions will development take in the next century? A distinguished group of experts on economic development debated this question in late 1996. Their views of the emerging development consensus are presented in Economic and Social Development into the XXI Century. The authors give special attention to developing countries in Latin America and East Asia. Analyzing the growth of certain East Asian economies, they ask what can be emulated: state-engineered industrial policies? an export push? better initial income distribution? fiscal incentives to promote corporate growth? the region's successful land reform efforts, or the commitment to better education? While agreeing that equity is a major determinant of economic success, they differ regarding how to achieve it.
Economic and social progress requires a diverse ecosystem of firms that play complementary roles. Making It Big: Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms constitutes one of the most up-to-date assessments of how large firms are created in low- and middle-income countries and their role in development. It argues that large firms advance a range of development objectives in ways that other firms do not: large firms are more likely to innovate, export, and offer training and are more likely to adopt international standards of quality, among other contributions. Their particularities are closely associated with productivity advantages and translate into improved outcomes not only for their owners but also for their workers and for smaller enterprises in their value chains. The challenge for economic development, however, is that production does not reach economic scale in low- and middle-income countries. Why are large firms scarcer in developing countries? Drawing on a rare set of data from public and private sources, as well as proprietary data from the International Finance Corporation and case studies, this book shows that large firms are often born large—or with the attributes of largeness. In other words, what is distinct about them is often in place from day one of their operations. To fill the “missing top†? of the firm-size distribution with additional large firms, governments should support the creation of such firms by opening markets to greater competition. In low-income countries, this objective can be achieved through simple policy reorientation, such as breaking oligopolies, removing unnecessary restrictions to international trade and investment, and establishing strong rules to prevent the abuse of market power. Governments should also strive to ensure that private actors have the skills, technology, intelligence, infrastructure, and finance they need to create large ventures. Additionally, they should actively work to spread the benefits from production at scale across the largest possible number of market participants. This book seeks to bring frontier thinking and evidence on the role and origins of large firms to a wide range of readers, including academics, development practitioners and policy makers.
With the shift of the global economic gravity toward emerging economies and the roaring economic growth of the past three decades in China, East Asian catching-up growth strategies have profound implications for latecomer economies. While there are many handbooks on entrepreneurship in general, there is no reference on East Asian entrepreneurship. This is the first of its kinds in the market. The volume provides a useful reference for those who want to know East Asian entrepreneurship and business systems. It also provides many excellent cases and illustrations on the growth of entrepreneurial firms and the rise of branded products in East Asia. Policy makers or scholars who are interested in entrepreneurship, small and medium sized enterprises, Asian business systems, international business, innovation and technology management, economic development, strategic management and East Asian studies would benefit from this volume. The volume contains two parts. The first part is the key concepts associate with entrepreneurship and East Asian firm growth and transformation. The second part presents cases of entrepreneurial firms and their founders in East Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. With the handbook, scholars, students and policy makers can grab some basic ideas how entrepreneurs and firms in East Asia compete and survive in the world market and understand why and how East Asia economies can emerge as one of the most dynamic regions in the world. Part I concepts: relating to Entrepreneurship: Guanxi Catching-up strategies Types of entrepreneurship Business System Strategic Management Leadership Part II cases cover variedly from manufacturing to services industries, and specifically including traditional and newly corporations ranging from toys, convenient stores, fast fashion, high-tech, to catering and service. Written by experts in their respective areas, Handbook of East Asia entrepreneurship is an excellent review of theories, policies and empirical evidences on important topics in Entrepreneurship in East Asian economic development. The book is both a superb teaching tool and a valuable handbook in development economics.
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.
Entrepreneurship in Korea offers a fresh perspective on entrepreneurship in Korea by combining a historical review of the achievements of Korean entrepreneurs at each stage of economic development with an analysis of the activities of current entrepreneurs who are at the forefront of the new Korean age. It discusses the crucial role of business entrepreneurship in each stage of Korea’s transformation from an underdeveloped East Asian backwater to a global manufacturing and technology powerhouse throughout the last 100 years. Furthermore, it provides an up-to-date analysis of contemporary start-up entrepreneurship in Korea and discusses its unique characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. Authors identify specific features of entrepreneurship in Korea, why and how business entrepreneurs have been so successful and effective, how their entrepreneurial styles and activities have changed over time, which challenges Korean start-up entrepreneurs are currently facing, and how these challenges may be addressed.
This book is a timely evaluation of how a harmonious business environment can be created and managed successfully in an increasingly turbulent era. It illustrates how diversity within East-West business is valuable to the development of new approaches in managing harmony for practitioners.
South Korea has been quietly growing into a major economic force, even challenging Japan in some industries. This growth may be seen as an example of "late industrialization" and this book discusses this point.
Since the beginning of the 2000s, important changes in external environments have affected the corporate governance practices of firms all around the world. The corporate governance structure in each country develops in response to country-specific factors and conditions. Firms are currently engaged in a variety of dynamic business relationships such as business networks, strategic alliances, and conglomerates especially in high technology sectors. Strategy, Structure and Corporate Governance by Nabyla Daidj, proposes to analyze the main trends and drivers of change in corporate governance of several kinds of organizations: - Large conglomerates. The development of large and complex conglomerate organizations have played an important role in the economy in Japan but also in other countries such as Korea with chaebols, which can be defined as closely intertwined industrial groupings. - Inter-firms networks (districts, clusters etc.); and, - 'Recent' forms of inter-firms networks (business ecosystems). The author examines several case studies and shows how shifts in markets and global competition are reconfiguring transactions within these organizations and are impacting corporate governance systems.
