Between Late-Industrialisation and Globalisation: The Hybridisation of Labour Relations among Leading South Korean Firms

South Korea's (hereinafter Korea) labour relations illuminate the possibilities for the ‘hybridisation’ of non-liberal capitalism under globalisation. Unlike the well-known German and Japanese advanced non-liberal capitalisms, Korea appeared to be far less conducive to ‘hybridisation’. First, inclusive labour practices were not well developed. Second, it had introduced comprehensive economic liberalisation following the financial crash of 1998. Despite these unfavourable conditions, leading Korean firms have tended to maintain or even introduce non-liberal practices than to discard them. The resulting melding of non-liberal and liberal practices (‘hybridisation’) can be traced to three legacies of late-industrialisation: state inclination to intervene during crises; countervailing power of labour at leading enterprises; and the intensity of big business rivalry as a force for the assimilation of inclusive practices. The effects of these legacies in generating mixed practices will be illustrated using firm-level case studies from Korea's two leading export sectors. It will also be argued that Korea's pattern of labour relations hybridity is not conducive to convergence with extant forms of advanced capitalism. Hence Korea is more suitably denoted as a form of late-industrialisation hybrid capitalism whose experience is relevant to other late-developers as they achieve ‘advanced’ status.