Global Financialization and Corporate Innovation Strategy: The Case of Korean Firms

Technological innovation is a core aspect of corporate and national competitiveness and it is not only complex―requiring cooperation and coordination among many stakeholders―but it also involves high risk due to uncertainty. Financial markets are a key to successful technological innovation. This book looks at how traditional financing and non-traditional ones transform corporate innovation strategy.

This book reviews Korean companies to illustrate the impact of financialization on technological innovation through the relationships among financialization, managerial myopia and short-termism of innovation strategy. It does so by conducting an empirical study using Korean firm and USPTO data from the period of 1980 to 2017. By analyzing the innovation capabilities of Korean companies and presenting indicators of technological competitiveness, it offers insights into how financialization has influenced organizational behaviour, causing them to shift strategy formulation, decision making for production, investment and technological innovation away from a long-term perspective to short-term one.

This concise book will be of interest to those interested in strategy and entrepreneurship innovation, especially policy makers focusing on financialization or national level innovation strategies.

Hwan Joo Seo is Professor at the Division of Business Administration at Hanyang University, South Korea. His research interests focus on Regulation theory, income equality, and financialization.

Sung Jin Kang is Professor at the Department of Economics and Director of the Institute for Economic Research, Korea University. His main fields of research are issues on sustainable development such as green growth, climate change, and economic development.