Globalisation and Institutional Change in the State-Led Model: The Case of Corporate Governance in South Korea

Abstract

This article explores the homogenising pressures of globalisation and institutional change in the state-led model of capitalism, within the purview of the ‘varieties of capitalism’ literature. In light of the observation that the national political economies which are the exemplars of the state-led model have undergone a more fundamental change towards the liberal market model than the other non-liberal variant (namely, the coordinated market model), the article asks what systemic (structural-institutional) factors make the state-led model less resilient in the face of pressures for change. Focusing on corporate governance in South Korea as an illustrative case study, the article argues that the absence of the kind of institutional complementarity (that is, mutually reinforcing link) between the key capitalist sub-systems found in the coordinated market model can help to explain the profound, and even path-shifting, change in the state-led model.