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I have a really hard time finding books on Korean companies, methods, or up-to-date planning; particularly on Samsung, Hyundai, LG or new fields like biotech/re
by eatonphil 7y ago
I have a really hard time finding books on Korean companies, methods, or up-to-date planning; particularly on Samsung, Hyundai, LG or new fields like biotech/renewable; and preferably written by Korean journalists or academics. On the other hand there's a lot you can find written about American or Japanese companies like Taiichi Ohno on Toyota, John Bogle on Vanguard, MITI and the Japanese Miracle, etc. I get that this is primarily a matter of 1) impact and 2) population. But Hyundai, LG and Samsung are major international companies now.
The few books on Korean companies I've read, written by Americans, have been terribly pithy and missing a lot of actual history. I will still give Samsung Rising a read though.
But if you have worked with Korean companies before and have any recommendations for good histories of companies or methods, I'd love to get them. Biographies are a little more common and a little less interesting to me. Over biographies I'd prefer up to date recommendations on the Korean economy and planning. Most of the books out there were written in the 90s/00s.
Edit: recommendations don't have to be in English, Korean is fine.
- lycidas 7y agoI recently read "Bad Samaritans" by Ha-Joon Chang and a lot of it giving an overview of how the Korean economy developed in the 20th century.
- eatonphil 7y agoYeah! He's been on my list for a while. He's a prolific author.
- bane 7y agoIt's really important I think to also understand the genesis of the modern conglomerates in Korea in order to understand their history and arrive at modern day practice. IIR, "A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present" by Michael J. Seth is an excellent book that has some great sections on the topic. I haven't come across any real "management theory" texts out of Korea, in the same way that Kaizen came out of Japan and was all the rage in the 80s and 90s in U.S. management circles. There's probably a few reasons for it, but I think the most compelling one is that in the things that are no real international competitors in the leading industries of the day to the U.S. (software, internet stuff, etc.), so there's no real driver to look abroad and see what the other guy is doing. In the 80s and 90s, Japanese car companies started taking the stuffing out of the American auto industry, then a dominant market, and it forced people to seek out how this was happening. Today "Agile" is all the rage, and nobody is really doing it better. However, the reverse is happening, as South Korea continues to transition to more of a service oriented economy, and American-style management practices are slowly being integrated into Korean workplaces. There's a pretty direct line from Drucker bringing Kaizen over to modern Agile practices, and I suspect that we'll see a similar Korean evolution of Agile practices that befit the culture. I would suggest reading: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317639433_Formal_and_informal_controls_in_contemporary_Korean_management https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317639433_Formal_an... as well as this short talk https://youtu.be/OHilmaWZVUw https://youtu.be/OHilmaWZVUw
- niyikiza 7y agoSomeone recommended Ha-Joon Chang books on this thread. They are fantastic. You may also want to check out "Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization" by Alice H. Amsden Disclaimer: lived in Korea for 8 years