Founder Lee Embraced East, West Management
By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
Samsung Group founder Lee Byung-chull created a unique style of business management by combining neo-Confucianism with management styles found in advanced countries, an economic scholar said.
Tweaking with the prevalent top-down structure of organizations here, the late business guru introduced Japanese-style management, German-style production control and Americanized personnel management to lift Samsung to become the top Korean conglomerate, Rang-Ri Park Barjot, a researcher at France's Sorbonne University, said Wednesday at a symposium in Seoul to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Lee's birth.
Under his leadership, Samsung became an archetype for chaebol, standing out among other Korean companies, according to Barjot.
Samsung's characteristic features in management include investing in educating talented and promising employees and a sense of finesse when it came to controlling the organization.
Samsung also contributed to the miraculous growth of the Korean economy by creating many jobs and massive investment, she added. Thanks to the explosion of research and development, it successfully replaced the strategy of imitation with one of innovation to catch up to global rivals.
Adding to the unique culture of Samsung was its consistent interest in nurturing talent, said Professor Isao Yanagimachi of Japan's Keio University.
``Lee's philosophy in management is similar to that of Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of Japanese giant Mitsubishi, given their common interest in merit-oriented management,'' Yanagimachi said.
``Iwasaki wasn't a man of high education, but he placed a high value on it and was always committed to recruiting talented employees and polishing them through further education.''
Samsung has long been known as a ``business academy,'' because it established a system to find recruits with great potential and make the best of their talent. Lee believed that that ``productivity grows naturally if employees are educated and managed correctly.''
Yonsei University Professor Chang Jin-ho said Lee's history of business management embodies Korea's transformation of its economic and industrial structures.
``He advanced new businesses according to the changing times, in consideration of Samsung's competitiveness and Korea's economic development,'' Chang said.
``Also, some features common to Korean companies, such as aptitude tests for recruiting and operational divisions of organization, were first introduced into Korea by Lee.''
Lee's legacy now gives local conglomerates the mission of extending his innovations to become sustainable management strategies, some participants of the symposium said.
Professor Tarun Khanna of Harvard University said there needs to be more study shedding light on the positive side of conglomerates, urging society to acknowledge their pivotal role in the economy.
``It's just like looking away from an elephant in the room to focus only on the negatives of conglomerates and refusing to look on their positive effects,'' Khanna said.
Also, Korean conglomerates should always be alert to the trap of self-complacency, so they can make the best of their talent and maximize creativeness, he added.
Some 500 local entrepreneurs and scholars took part in Wednesday's symposium. Cho Suck-rae, chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, delivered the opening remarks and Choi Woo-seok, former vice president of the Samsung Economic Research Institute, made a speech on the life and business management philosophy of the Samsung founder.