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Pathways to cooperation: the transformation of labour relations among leading South Korean firms

Abstract The presence of cooperative labour relations based on partnership among leading South Korean firms challenges prevailing theories that emphasize the role of national-level economic institutions and political alliances in shaping firm-level institutions. Economic liberalization and the failure of societal corporatist initiatives during the past decade indicate the absence of macro conditions favourable to the development of micro or firm-level partnership. Instead, partnership can be traced to political and economic factors operating at the micro or firm level. From case studies of five leading South Korean firms, this article will explain how partnership was forged out of micro-level interactions between cooperative institutions, power distributions and historical legacies. These firms’ cooperative ‘pathways’ reveal how micro-level institutions associated with coordinated capitalism may thrive within the macro framework of neo-liberalism. Given the economic importance of these leading firms, the institutional distinctiveness of Korean labour relations (and, by extension, the distinctiveness of Korean capitalism) is likely to persist despite the broader shift towards liberal capitalism.