Asiana Airlines president bows in apology for crash, a show of Korea’s very different corporate...

Asiana Airlines president bows in apology for crash, a show of Korea’s very different corporate culture

On Sunday, Asiana Airlines President and CEO Yoon Young-doo held a news conference in Seoul, flanked by several board members, on the crash in San Francisco that killed two passengers and wounded many others. The South Korean airline executive said all of the things you might expect: he explained what he knew, offered condolences for the victims and defended the airlines’ pilots and planes. Then he did something that, for American audience, was more unusual: he offered not just a personal apology but a deep, solemn bow. The Asiana board members on the stage bowed with him.

Part of this, of course, is that bowing is common in South Korea but not really done in the United States. But there’s more to it than that. South Korea’s corporate culture, like the Korean economic boom of the last few decades, is unusual and much-studied. In some ways, this bow was a symbol of what makes the country’s corporate culture so different.

Part of it has to do with the way South Korea’s economy grew: with a heavy guiding hand from the state. The government helped a number of once-small companies consolidate into massive conglomerates known as chaebols, which are often family-run and have since accumulated tremendous political and economic power.

In some ways, chaebols are a lot like American multinationals: economic behemoths with heavy influence. But, in part due to the way they grew and the state’s role in fostering them as national symbols, perhaps as well as some Confucian cultural influence, they operate in some ways like family businesses. And they’re treated as such by many employees and by South Korean consumers. According to a 2005 article on chaebols in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, “Korean consumers have a strong attachment to chaebols with which they associate quality and, in turn, trust,” with the chaebols serving as a kind of extension of Confucian ideals of the family. That means consumer loyalty to the brand but also brand responsibility for the consumer: hence, bowing to ask forgiveness.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/07/08/asiana-airlines-president-bows-in-apology-for-crash-a-show-of-koreas-very-different-corporate-culture/