만우 조홍제 회장과 효성의 기업문화

A study on the characteristics of the corporate culture of Hyosung Chaebol

The purpose of this study is to review the characteristics of the Hyosung Chaebol s corporate culture and the impacts of its founder and current CEO on them. The data for analysis were collected both from internal and external materials, such as the internal employee magazine(Hyosung), company history annals, founder s autobiography, newspaper articles, company documents, and lots of nonmaterial artifacts (for example, CEO speeches, stories, rituals and ceremonies) as well. Patterns of administrative behavior and founder CEO leaderships were considered as very meaningful cultural artifacts. The findings from this study are as followings; First, in Hyosung culture, no serious conflicts have been shown when cultural transition from founder CEO to the succeeding second generation CEO was implemented. Most part of start-up mission and business ideology of the founder have been transferred to current top management s thought of doing business. Second, Hyosung s culture can be characterized as distinctive progressiveness and performance-oriented one represented by high quality, competence, profitability and innovation. Third, diverse subcultures across performance units have been found. To better understand Hyosung s culture, further study about the way how diverse subcultures came to emerge in different industries(performance units). Fourth, top management must take into account corporate culture first before engaging in a new strategy because the fitness between strategy and corporate culture is needed for successful implementation of the strategy. Lastly, it is strongly recommended for top management in Hyosung Chaebol to use the symbolic management and human resource management practices for keeping a strong corporate culture and the fitness between strategy and corporate culture.