동래상인집단의 성쇠프로세스에 대한 史的 고찰

Abstract

Economic cooperation and trade between Korea and Japan have been started a long time ago. A group of Dongrae merchants, one of several merchant groups who were active in the Joseon Dynasty, stood at the center of such activities. This study attempted to analyze the growth and decline process of organization, to suggest historical implications by looking at characteristics of each period in such process, based on the activity history of the Dongrae merchants group and organizations related to them that carried out commercial activities with Japanese people in area of the Dongrae Waegwan for about 470 years from the early period to the end period of Joseon Dynasty. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, we first review the main prior researches on Dongrae merchants, then define the keywords in a limited concept to fit this study and design an creative analysis framework based on the prior researches and the definition of keywords. The keywords are Dongrae merchant and the growth and decline process, the process is divided into four periods or stages such as formation period and growth period and maturity period, and decline period. Next, the characteristics of their commerce and related activities were analyzed by four periods from the early Joseon dynasty (1407), the beginning of the activities of Dongrae merchants, to the end of the Joseon dynasty (1876). As a first result, the characteristics of the formation period that lasted for about 36 years is the fact that did not provide effective and active response to the Japanese trade desire at the beginning, and it was the time to sort out the various problems arising from formal trade with Japan and design a trade standard. Second, the characteristics of the growth period that lasted for about 67 years is the fact that the first priority was to crack down on various political and social problems that had arisen as the trade scales expanded, and it was a time when there was a lot of worries about whether to regulate and control or to leave to the market principle. Third, the characteristics of maturity period that lasted for about 242 years is the fact that it was an unstable period when there were four trade disruptions, and that trade resumed in a relatively short period of time, despite the critical incidents that affect the maintenance and resumption of trade between two countries such as Imjin waeran and Jeongyu jaeran. Fourth, the characteristics of decline period that lasted for about 124 years is the fact that the domestic production of ginseng and silk, which were the main products of export to Japan, decreased sharply and the substitute materials increased, and the silver as the main imported goods were replaced by copper, and the utility of the products in the trade between the two countries went down, thereby promoting the decline period. Finally, the historical implications derived from the analysis of the growth and decline process are as follows. First, social problems that affect the survival and growth of an organization or group are consequentially solved by political or economic logic. Second, the rise and fall of an organization or group is determined at the balance of political and economic logic. Third, the history of interruption and resumption of trade repeats continuously. The results of this study will be helpful for corporate managers to establish sustainable management strategies, and provide basic data or implications to researchers interest or research the growth and decline process or the success and failure factors of organization.