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Chaebol Reform: Politics of Introducing Business Reforms in South Korea

Şener, Bahar (2020) COSM40
Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University
Abstract
Calls to implement corporate reforms in South Korea reached its apex with the strong public outrage at 2016 Presidential corruption scandal involving the largest business groups within the country. In 2017, the newly elected President Moon Jae In promised to achieve corporate reforms that past administrations struggled to engage with. Considering the lack of progress in regulating unfair corporate practices and recurrent episodes of corruption scandals, this thesis will try to answer the following question: why it is so difficult to implement effective corporate reforms in South Korea? A combination of comparative methods and narrative analysis is used to trace the new policy direction of the Moon administration in Korea Fair Trade... (More)
Calls to implement corporate reforms in South Korea reached its apex with the strong public outrage at 2016 Presidential corruption scandal involving the largest business groups within the country. In 2017, the newly elected President Moon Jae In promised to achieve corporate reforms that past administrations struggled to engage with. Considering the lack of progress in regulating unfair corporate practices and recurrent episodes of corruption scandals, this thesis will try to answer the following question: why it is so difficult to implement effective corporate reforms in South Korea? A combination of comparative methods and narrative analysis is used to trace the new policy direction of the Moon administration in Korea Fair Trade Commission annual reports and the media coverage on the adoption of a stewardship code by the National Pension Service of South Korea. The findings indicate that combined with strong resistance from corporate circles, institutional framework of policy making accounts for the short lived attempts at introducing regulations which are best explained by the concept of imperial and fragile presidency. In that sense, the recent attempts to achieve corporate reforms suffer from similar problems faced by previous administrations, which brings its effectiveness under scrutiny. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Şener, Bahar
supervisor
organization
course
COSM40
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Korean Chaebols, State – Business Relations, Imperial Presidency, Corporate Reforms, Chaebol Reform, Stewardship Code
language
English
id
9031775
date added to LUP
2020-11-10 11:47:26
date last changed
2020-11-10 11:47:26
@misc{9031775,
  abstract     = {{Calls to implement corporate reforms in South Korea reached its apex with the strong public outrage at 2016 Presidential corruption scandal involving the largest business groups within the country. In 2017, the newly elected President Moon Jae In promised to achieve corporate reforms that past administrations struggled to engage with. Considering the lack of progress in regulating unfair corporate practices and recurrent episodes of corruption scandals, this thesis will try to answer the following question: why it is so difficult to implement effective corporate reforms in South Korea? A combination of comparative methods and narrative analysis is used to trace the new policy direction of the Moon administration in Korea Fair Trade Commission annual reports and the media coverage on the adoption of a stewardship code by the National Pension Service of South Korea. The findings indicate that combined with strong resistance from corporate circles, institutional framework of policy making accounts for the short lived attempts at introducing regulations which are best explained by the concept of imperial and fragile presidency. In that sense, the recent attempts to achieve corporate reforms suffer from similar problems faced by previous administrations, which brings its effectiveness under scrutiny.}},
  author       = {{Şener, Bahar}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Chaebol Reform: Politics of Introducing Business Reforms in South Korea}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}