Home Articles Abstract
Research Article

Changing Institutional Contexts and Responses of Korean Chaebol: DAEWOO GROUP

Park, Choelsoon1 · Kim, Seonghoon1

1 Seoul National University

Published: January 2006 · Vol. 10, No. 1 · pp. 81-98
Full Text

Abstract

Prior to the 1990s, the supply was highly limited in most industries, while the demand was huge and rapidly increasing in Korea. Under the business environment of demand surplus, the rules of the game were “who produces more”, rather than “who produces better”. Most firms thus made every effort to produce as large volume as possible to meet such a high demand. Daewoo was one of the successful chaebol under these rules of the game; aggressively pursuing growth strategy, Daewoo grew faster than any other business groups in Korea. Since the early 1990s, however, overcapacity has become the norm in most industries due to significant increases not only in domestic supply but also in global competition from the liberalization of domestic markets. In this changing institutional context, some firms such as Samsung have dropped their strategic objective of quantitative growth, and implemented the strategy formulated to improve the quality of products. However, Daewoo responded to the change differently; Daewoo tried to continue its quantitative growth through, so called, the Global Management initiative.
Keywords: 대우그룹세계 경영제도적 환경다각화 전략