The chaebol spurn change
Asia’s financial crisis forced some reforms on South Korea’s huge industrial conglomerates. But they are still rather better at talking about restructuring than actually doing it
THEIRS is perhaps the most Confucian of cultures. So Koreans cannot help but feel a sense of shame as they watch what unfolds at Hyundai, the country's largest family-owned industrial conglomerate, or chaebol. Two brothers are feuding bitterly over the succession, while their octogenarian father spitefully clings to patriarchal powers that he has relinquished on paper. The rift has split senior management into rival camps, setting South Korea's largest private-sector bureaucracy at war with itself. And this at exactly the same time as Hyundai claims—as do all chaebol—to be making its management more transparent and accountable to shareholders.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “The chaebol spurn change”
From the July 22nd 2000 edition
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