한국기업 지배구조 개혁의 비혁신성과 향후 과제

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The reform of corporate governance in Korea has been widely touted as one of the most successful outcomes of joint reform efforts by the Kim Dae-Jung Government and the IMF. Previous governance structures were blamed for authoritarianism and arbitrariness in Korean enterprises that affected the Korean economy and led to Korea’s moratorium crisis of 1997.
Korea has maintained essentially the same corporate governance structure since early 1960’s during the era of ‘industrialization at all cost’pursued by the military dictatorship government. Industrialization in Korea was initiated by the military hard-liners who seized power through military coup in 1961. President-General Park Chung Hee, the head of the military junta, was the architect of the Korean economic ‘miracle’. The Park Jung Hee paradigm of industrialization and economic development - government-led, centralized, and disciplined - has been considered as one of the most successful models of economic take-off from a poor-agrarian-underdeveloped nation to a fully developed state.
The governance of Korean corporations was the product and legacy of a policy of export-oriented total mobilization for industrialization pursued by the military dictatorship from the 1960’s through the 1980’s. In assuming the role of enginesof economic development and primary tool of government’s economic policy, Korean companies grew into chaebol, or Korean family-managed conglomerates. The resulting system of corporate governance gainedthe fundamental characteristics of autocracy, non-transparency, oppressiveness, exploitativeness, and hereditary succession, which mirrored the military dictatorship of the nation and the tradition of ancien regime as well.
The financial crises of 1997 called into question the prevailing Park Chung Hee paradigm of economic development and management. Chaebol and its corporate governance became the object of intense criticism from the Korean public opinion as well as from international financial institution and investors. The International Monetary Fund and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) made reform of economic system, chaebol, and corporate governance prerequisites of an emergency bailout loan. Under pressure from the IMF/IBRD, and with widespread public support, the reform of corporate governance has become a top priority of the Korean government.
This research provides a thorough examination of the processes and outcomes of over five years of corporate governance reform efforts by the Korean government, and presents new perspectives and insights concerning what should be done in the future. The reform of corporate governance has been pursued in conjunction with the chaebol reform. Called 5+3 agenda, the objectives of chaebol reform were mutually agreed upon in two steps by then President Kim Dae Jung and chaebol owners. The 5denotes 1) increasing transparency in corporate management, 2) eliminating debt guaranties, 3) renovating corporate financial structures, 4) establishing core competencies and more equitable relationship with SMEs, and 5) increasing accountability of controlling shareholders and management. The 3 denotes 1) prohibiting chaebol’sdomination of finance, 2) suppressing interlocking investment and illegal insider transactions, 3) preventing improper bequests or gifts to heirs. Thus, the 5+3 chaebol and corporate governance reform plans ran concurrently and constituted an inseparable whole, seeking to completely reform chaebol.
The most fundamental issue raised with regard to corporate governance, has been how to deal with the omnipotent power of chaebol owners. They are above corporate checks and balances and beyond government control and regulations. Chaebol has grown ‘too big too fail’ and the chaebol owners have built up an empire in which they reign as absolute monarchs in the ancien regime tradition.
The reform of corporate governance aims at putting an end to t