Samsung’s New Board Gets Back to Business

“No chaebol chiefs want to lose control over their empires,” says one analyst. “Their tendency is to lie flat on the ground, tough it out, and then resume business as usual.”

While this could be a commentary on Seoul today, the reporting comes from a Businessweek article in the late 1990s, when South Korea was ensnared in the Asian financial crisis. Then South Korea’s corporate empires were under attack. The Korean economy was struggling, and politicians were responding by pledging to reform the chaebol, the family-controlled conglomerates that dominate businesses ranging from shipbuilding to chipmaking. The conglomerates waited for the storm to pass.