Varieties of globalisation and national economy: Korea’s experience from a comparative perspective

Abstract

As competition has increased worldwide, national corporations have recombined the best elements of input across national borders. However, unlike the denationalisation views of neoliberalism and leftist global capitalism school, this paper, based on the Korean experience, holds that patterns of globalisation differ widely. The comparative institutionalist views, including the (post-)Varieties of Capitalism and Comparative Capitalism schools, hold that exposure to globalisation reinforces rather than disrupts national economic models. However, Korea changed its traditional development model in the course of its core firms’ internationalisation by building new collaborative interfirm relations at home and nationally oriented networks on foreign soil. To examine the causes of diverse patterns of globalisation and co-evolutionary reconstitution of national economies, this paper emphasises the agency of key actors—particularly governments and lead firms.