> If it were actually efficient we'd see less issues. I'd say the Korean economy is hyper-competitive but fairly inefficient. I remember once visiting the head

> If it were actually efficient we'd see less issues. I'd say the Korean economy is hyper-competitive but fairly inefficient. I remember once visiting the head office in Seoul of a major South Korean firm – they had a rather large development team working on some rather quotidian internal corporate needs (identity management, corporate intranet/portal, etc). And yet, they were being subjected to the kind of limitations one would expect only on some classified national security project – e.g. Internet access blocked so they couldn't access StackOverflow/etc, personal electronic devices had to be put in lockers at the building security desk, etc. The restrictions were very obviously impeding their productivity. It appeared that the company's management was very paranoid about corporate espionage, to a degree which seemed out of place given the actual business this company did. A Korean colleague told me that a lot of South Korean companies were like that. His theory was that senior management at many firms is dominated by retired military officers, who take from their military background a culture of secrecy which may well be justified in the military, defence contractors, super-high-tech firms such as leading-node semiconductor fabrication, etc–but isn't appropriate for your average business, and this particular firm wasn't doing anything like that. What do I know, but his theory seemed plausible to me.