한국 대기업의 성공적인 성장요인: 내·외부적 요인과 전략적 특성들

Due to the impressive ascent of Korean firms over the past four decades in multiple industriessuch as electronics, automobile, and shipbuilding industries, there has been substantial researchinto Korean firms to identify their ‘Success Strategies’. Building on prior studies, this study aimsto investigate how global leading Korean firms have been so successful. Most of the global leading Korean firms were started as a result of their business groups’ unrelateddiversification strategies, which were pursued in response to the Korean government’s industrialpolicy. The Korean government targeted specific strategic industries that may have a ripple effecton overall economic growth, then used economic inducements for select business groups to enterthose industries. Seeking to expand the size and scope of their businesses, the business groupsresponded to the government policy. Therefore, it is necessary to examine how industry-levelfactors contributed to the growth of global leading Korean firms. However, not all firms in thesame industry have been equally successful. For example, Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motors,and Hyundai Heavy Industries have constantly outperformed their domestic rivals in the sameindustries. Hence, the global competitiveness of these global leading firms cannot be fully accountedfor by the industry-level factors and we need to examine their unique, firm-level strategic factors. Thus, this study focuses on both industry-level factors and firm-level strategies. We employ Porter’s(1990) diamond model to analyze industry conditions and analyze firm-level strategies from apath-creating catch-up perspective (Hobday, 1995; Lee & Lim, 2001). To uncover the success factors of the global leading Korean firms, we conducted in-depth casestudies of the following three firms: Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motors, and Hyundai HeavyIndustries. These three firms are undoubtedly the most successful Korean firms that have maintaineda dominant position in the global electronics, automobile, and shipbuilding industries, respectively. Entry barriers in those industries are very high because of economies of scale, the requirement for substantial capital investment, and the importance of accumulated knowledge and experiencesin the field. Therefore, it is extremely difficult for newcomers to enter these markets and effectivelycompete with incumbent firms. Nonetheless, these three Korean firms successfully entered theirrespective global markets and quickly caught up with the leading firms that have dominated themarkets for decades. After extensive literature review and in-depth interviews with current and former top executivesof these companies, we uncover several industry-level and firm-level factors that can explain howthese three firms became global powerhouses. First, when the three firms entered their respectivemarkets, they suffered from factor disadvantages and the lack of related and supporting industries. In addition, corresponding domestic markets were very small. Given the importance of economiesof scale, the small size of domestic markets, ironically, motivated these firms to target global marketsfrom the beginning. They had to quickly develop global competitiveness for survival. In addition,intense competition among domestic firms to dominate the small available domestic market helpedthem to quickly develop competitiveness. Besides the industry-level factors, the three firms exhibited similar patterns in catching-up toglobal leading firms. Firm-level strategic factors include the use of learning as a mechanism forcatching-up, the emphasis on speed, and vertical integration. In the early period of their development,the three firms tried to be “fast followers” by quickly learning the knowledge and skills of theglobal leading firms. After catching-up to their competitors, they began to develop their own moreadvanced technology, pulling ahead of the competition. In the whole process, the emphasis onspeed played a critical role. Given the large-scale initial capital investments, these firms had toquickly generate sales. Thus, they tried to shorten the time taken for the construction of factoriesand shipyards. More importantly, emphasis on speed helped them to quickly overcome the disadvantagesof being latecomers by motivating them to quickly increase production volume to be more efficientand to quickly narrow the technology gap. Lastly, these firms pursued vertical integration becauseof the lack of related and supporting industries. Operating vertically-integrated businesses helpedthem to reduce cost and increase product quality at the same time, resulting in the creation ofsubstantial synergies. The challenges now facing these firms are very clear: they now have to lead their respectivemarkets. Leading the market to widen the gap with other competitors is clearly different fromfollowing a leader to narrow the gap. To sustain global leadership, the global leading Koreanfirms have to focus on developing innovative capabilities.