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| HMP Law Chairman Hwang Ju-myung, center, answers during a Q&A session in Fleishman Hillard's Asia Pacific Leadership session in Seoul, Wednesday. |
By Oh Young-jin
Today's Korea presents a unique set of challenges to foreign firms, thanks to a changing business environment, so they should understand the market better if they want to prosper in one of the world's most-vibrant economies, says a noted lawyer who has long advised foreign firms.
In a speech Wednesday, Hwang Ju-myung, chairman of HMP Law, first talked about Korea's history of compressed development and its side effects.
"Korea has a "can-do spirit" that lives in most Koreans," Hwang told representatives of Fleishman Hillard, a global public relations firm, at its Asia Pacific Leadership session in Seoul. "This first came to the foreground in the 1970s and '80s, when the Korean economy developed enormously.
"Now Korea is infused with the spirit of the 'Candlelight Revolution' that forced President Park Geun-hye out of office. Korean young people look at people like me and those of a similar dignified age and see us as old fuddy-duddies. There is a word that has recently entered the Korean vocabulary. That word is kkondae (꼰대) or stubborn old people.
"This 'can-do spirit,' combined with generational conflict and a desire to change things and to right every wrong quickly, can at times be a dangerous mixture."
Hwang said young Koreans are no longer content to let democratic institutions and courts of law handle wrongs and injustices ― they want them fixed now. And so we see Korean society filled with conflicts, both in public spaces and in the courts. Public sentiment wants to fix and change things quickly.
He said he agreed with FH Korea's brief to help understand the Korean zeitgeist.
Hwang summarized it as:
1) Korean consumers now want a direct communications channel to producers and service providers, and voters expect to see instant reactions to their grievances.
2) Generation Z, born between 1995 and the mid-2000s, are saying no to kkondae. They aren't interested in being told what to do by mobile-untrained older generations.
3) Monitoring and analyzing are important to checking if a client company, or relevant issue, is being mentioned in the media, whether positively or negatively.
He cited cases in which the Korean public was quick to blame foreign companies, sometimes rightly, for inaction or bad actions in the Korean marketplace.
"A foreign corporation can more easily become the target of anger in the form of demonstrations, boycotts, demands for prosecution and class action lawsuits," he said.
