ABSTRACT
Chung Juyung began as a shop-owner operating a rice wholesale business in the late 1930s. In the early 1940s Chung opened an automobile repair shop, the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Company. This section traces the business development of Hyundai from the 1940s to its transformation into a large industrial conglomerate in the 1960s. It provides the basis for examining the interaction between Hyundai’s business strategies and organisational structure and its approaches to labour management at this time in Chapter 2. Between the late 1940s and mid-1960s, Hyundai emerged as a successful construction contractor. When the Park military government implemented an economic policy focusing on rapid industrialisation in the 1960s, Hyundai was chosen as a representative construction company. This enabled Hyundai to accumulate sufficient capital and state support to diversify aggressively into other business sectors, such as heavy and machinery industries, from the 1970s onwards. During this period, Hyundai’s business strategies and managerial structure remained under the central control of its founder, Chung Juyung.
