두산 120년 - 적응과 변신의 역사

Abstract

Given that it is rare to witness the firms having longer than a centennial history in the world, the 120 business years of Doosan demonstrates prescence of its core competitiveness. In particular, the past one hundred years of South Korea, the era in which the Doosan businesses started and flourished, is chacterized as a turbulent changes and uncertainty, evidenced by the Japanese colonization, the Korean civil war, the post-war restoration, the industrialization drive, and the globalization imperatives. Therefore, this study examines why and how Doosan made decisions for change with interviews and documents, regarding adaptation to the changing business environments during 120 years as its core competitiveness. Two years after the reform in 1894 abolished yukuijeon, which is the association of merchants having the monopolistic sales rights, Park Seung Jik, the founder of Doosan opened a private textile store around Baeogae in 1896. In 1904, Park established a moderinized corporation with 26 partners, beginning the storage and land lease businesses. In 1906, he participated into establishment of Hansung Business Council, which was the earlier form of Korea Business Council now. In the 1930s, as the Japan’s economic control expanded to Machuria, the demand in the Korean Peninsula for beers rose sharply. Because imports from Japan would increase logistics costs, Japanese beer producers began to consider production in Korea. As a result, Showa Kirin Beer was established and Park joined the business as a managing director. After independence, the United States Military Government discommonned the Japanese property in Korea and redistributed to the civilians, Park Doo-byung, the eldest son of Park Seung Jik, took over the Showa Kirin Beer in September 1945, resumed the beer production in November, and changed the company name to Oriental Brewry. Oriental Brewry was closed in 1950 as the Korean civil war occurred, but re-opened in 1952 maintaining the private entity. In addition to the beer production, Doosan Mercantile Company was established for the trading and transportation business in 1946 and, further, Doosan Trading Company was established specialized for trading. The Korean civil war fell short of transportation vehicles, which made very profitable the transportation business of Doosan Mercantile Company. As Korean economy grew, Doosan sought for entries into both light and heavy manufacturing industries. As a result, at the end of 1970s, heavy industry goods shared two thirds of the company sales revenue, urging the firm into re-naming as Doosan Group. In the 1980s, the government drive for heavy industry continued, however, the oil shock overseas, the excessive domestic competition, and redundant investments awakened Doosan into the needs to explore overseas market through exports. Therefore, Doosan accumulated technical skills and managerial experiences by winning the bids for overseas construction projects, at the same time, participated in the housing construction and the land development business as the domestic construction market became expanded. Nevertheless, the phenol leakage in 1992 fatally damaged Doosan. It shut down the beer production business and transformed the group structure into the heavy manufacturing industries, overcoming the domestic crisis with globalization. As the Doosan business history shows, Doosan has aligned its business with the environment changes. By diversifying during the upturn and focusing on the selected cores during the downturn, it has been leading the proactive adaptation and transformation. We argue that, through the mechanism, the “survival to the fittest” should apply to the firms of long history as well. Hence, firms, like human beings, can survive only when they are good at adapting to the environmental changes. The anticedents of Doosan’s capability to adaptation are found to be the founder commitment to deny succession to incompetent heirs, the family culture to emphasis managerial training, the organizational culture to promote capable top managers, and the managerial tradition to boldly decide on entries and exits.