A Burkean Dramatistic Analysis of Tae-Joon Park’s Rhetoric: The Chairman and CEO of POSCO

Abstract

Objectives: This study analyzes the rhetoric of “Korea’s steel king,” Tae-Joon Park (TJ Park), the founder of POSCO (formerly Pohang Iron and Steel Company), with a specific focus on TJ Park’s rhetorical style and strategy, through a close reading of two speeches: his inaugural address at POSCO in 1968 and his speech commemorating the 10th anniversary of POSCO in 1978. Methods: This study applied the work of Kenneth Burke because of the impact of rhetorical analysis on the field of business communication studies. Burke’s approach includes the five qualities that comprise the pentad (scene, act, agent, agency, and purpose). Herein, these concepts are used to analyze TJ Park’s speeches, followed by an examination of how the Burkean notion of identification works in his addresses. Results: The present study demonstrated the basic rhetorical strategies in business communication that have influenced developments in research methodology based on Kenneth Burke’s concepts of the pentad and identification. Burke’s dramatistic method for the analysis of Park’s corporate rhetoric enabled an analysis of the relationship among features of Park’s rhetoric in terms of the business rhetorical situation. Conclusions: With his rhetoric, TJ Park set the scene to encourage employee motivation for the upper hierarchy of values, promoted employees’ future acts, changed the workers’ mentality, habits, and behaviors and turned them into “POSCO men,” shielded the management of POSCO from bureaucratic interference and unreasonable political pressure, and sublimated the corporate mission to a “national duty” and “historical mission.” His unique rhetoric contributed to the success of his management.