EAST ASIA

-China
-Hong Kong
-Japan
-Macau
-Mongolia
-North Korea
-South Korea
-Taiwan (China)

East Asia is a sub region of Asia that covers about 12, 28% of the Asian continent. The region is one of the world's most populated places with 22% of all the people in the world living there. Major religion in the region includes Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and more recently Christianity.
The countries belonging to this region are: China (Taiwan), Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Mongolia, North Korea, and South Korea, and due to their proximity, they have some cultural similarities. In this case we are going to make an emphasis in South Korea especially in the Chaebols and their relationship with the government base on the presentation of our classmates, Johan Mejia and Carlos Torres.
South Korea is a semi presidentila republic, a developed country with a high standar of living. It has the fourth largest economy in Asia and the 15th largest in the world, helping place S.K as one of the Asian Tigers. Its economy was small and predominantly agricultural well into the mid-20th century. However, the policies of President Park Chung Hee spurred rapid industrialization by promoting large businesses. Government industrial policy set the direction of new investment, and the chaebol were to be guaranteed loans from the banking sector. In this way, the chaebol played a key role in developing new industries, markets, and export production [1].
The Government-chaebol cooperation was essential to the subsequent economic growth and astounding successes that began in the early 1960s. Driven by the urgent need to turn the economy away from consumer goods and light industries toward heavy, chemical, and import-substitution industries, political leaders and government planners relied on the ideas and cooperation of the chaebol leaders. The government provided the blueprints for industrial expansion; the chaebol realized the plans. However, the chaebol-led industrialization accelerated the monopolistic and oligopolistic concentration of capital and economically profitable activities in the hands of a limited number of conglomerates.
The chaebol continued their explosive growth in export markets in the 1980s. But it was not until the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 that the weaknesses of the system were widely understood, 11 out of 30 chaebols collapsed.

During the recostruction period, bankrupted conglomerates were left under government supervision and the "too-big-to-fail" myth disappeared. Rules for transparent and responsible management have been established and reinforced through the appointment of outside directors, the introduction of audit committees and the obligatory publication of combined financial statements. The purpose of corporate reform is to enhance the productivity and growth potential of the Korean economy by establishing an efficient and fair market.

What is isomorphism? Do you think organizations change management styles to adapt to the environment? Which environment is stronger: national environment or international environment?

Because organizations are conforming to a common institutional environment, the result is something referred to as organizational isomorphism. Organizational isomorphism is a term for the similarity among organizations in a population and although it leads to stability and legitimacy, organizations may learn ways to behave that might become outdated and no longer lead to organizational effectiveness. Having this clear, I must say that I don’t think that organizations must change their styles to adapt to the environment, on the contrary I think they should adjust their styles to the culture they are entering. For example, even though Taiwanese organizations regard harmony as an important factor in their UK subsidiary, the British would not respond appropriately due to the traditional individualism in British working practices. According to this, I consider that although both national and international environment are important, the international is stronger than the national and that’s why they have to adjust style in order to be accepted.

Resources:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_korea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:East_Asia_(orthographic_projection).svg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol
http://www.korea.net/korea/kor_loca.asp?code=R05

road.uww.edu/.../Building%20Effective%20Organizations/Chapter%2011new.ppt