민영화 기업의 장기경영과 CEO 승계: 포스코 CEO 승계제도를 중심으로

The purpose of this study is to identify the causes of two major problems in POSCO, the privatized company acclaimed highly on its sound governance structure, which are the CEO’s tendency to pursue short-term oriented decision making and frequent CEO turnover by external pressures. This study also examines the effectiveness of government intervention to resolve such a problem as the CEO’s short-term oriented decision making. To address our research questions, we rely on an interpretive case study method. Our findings indicate that the major causes of the problems lies in the fact that the firm is recognized as the “ownerless firm,” which does not have a dominant stockholder or an owner. The fact that the government still recognizes it as a status-controlled firm is detrimental to the firm’s management. Pressures from short-term focused investors cause CEO to engage in the myopic decisionmakings, and the NGOs’ criticisms allow the government to intervene the managerial activities of the firm. However, the government intervention of corporate behaviors is found to be as an inappropriateway to solve the problems. Further, this study suggests that, by improving the comprehensive CEO succession system and strengthening roles and responsibilities of board of directors, the privatized firms like POSCO can run a long-range management planning and can elect or cultivate a CEO who is suitable for securing business continuity.