한국 대기업의 노사갈등 외부화 기제에 관한 연구

초록

Korean industrial relations academia has not conducted a full-scale study on the subject ofindustrial relations competencies. Yet the Swiss International Institute for Management Developmenthas reported that Korea's industrial relations competitiveness ranks 56th among the 60 countriessurveyed in 2013. This survey result was analyzed by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, andthe ministry's analysis was released by major newspapers and broadcasting companies. This study investigates how a number of Korean large enterprises acquired their leading positionsin world markets, and how they have sustained their competitiveness in spite of Korea's extremelyhigh level of labor-management conflicts. The large number of labor conflicts in Korea is rarelyregarded as a key factor in these large enterprises’ rise, yet it is difficult to believe that the companieshave enjoyed technological and quality advantages enough to overcome their severe industrialconflicts. Therefore, this research focuses on the mechanism in which Korean large enterpriseshave dealt with conflicts and have succeeded in attaining their competitiveness in the global market. To find this mechanism in Korean large companies, this research examines several theoreticalarguments about the relationship between labor management conflicts and industrial competitiveness. First, neo-corporatist theorists debated with neo-classical economists about the relationship betweenindustrial relations system and national competitiveness. Neo-classical economists claim that Europeanneo-corporatist countries lost competitiveness because their centralized industrial relations systemcaused labor market inflexibility. However, neo-corporatist theorists contend that many Europeancountries were equipped with the same level of flexibility as the U.S. and the U.K. having decentralizedindustrial relations systems. According to neo-corporatist theorists, certain European countries wereable to accommodate the high level of flexibility as their government, employers, and unions concludedsocial pacts. The social pacts enabled organizations to externalize industrial conflicts, which wasin turn usually accompanied by an increase in labor market flexibility. Using the rationale of this neo-corporatist theory, this paper hypothesizes that Korean large enterprises constructed a nationallevelmechanism to externalize the large number of labor conflicts. Secondly, production system theorists provide a reasonable argument on a mechanism in whichKorean large enterprises were able to build their competitiveness in spite of a large number ofindustrial conflicts. This paper reviewed theories on post-Fordism production systems such aslean production systems, qualified diversity production systems, and flexible specialization. Despitetheir diverse explanations on sources of competitiveness, these theorists share the view that interenterpriserelationships, especially those between assemblers and parts-suppliers, affect a company'scompetitiveness. When assembler and parts-suppliers are able to control their conflicts during theircollaborative efforts on innovations, they improve their competitiveness in the market. Based onthis common view, this paper examines how Korean large enterprise constructed an inter-enterprisesrelationship to externalize their large number of labor conflicts. Thirdly, theorists studying flexible enterprises and innovators posit an argument that companiesattain their competitiveness in spite of industrial conflicts. These theorists suggest that companiesraise their flexibility and competitiveness by dividing their workers into different groups such ascore workers and peripheral workers, thereby passing on the cost for core workers' employmentand wage stability onto peripheral workers. Based on this argument, this paper explores how Koreanlarge enterprises handled internal labor markets to improve their competitiveness despite theirhigh number of labor conflicts. This study uses qualitative analysis of two Korean companies to evaluate these hypotheses regardingmechanisms for externalizing the impact of labor-management conflicts. We examined HyundaiMotors and Samsung Electronics by reviewing company publications and research articles, andconducting unstructured depth interviews. Our research confirmed our hypotheses that Koreanlarge enterprises succeeded in retaining their competitiveness by building a mechanism to externalizethe impact of their large number of industrial conflicts and continue their innovation. Before theAsian Financial crisis in the late 1990s, Korean enterprises had tried to increase their share inthe world market by maintaining price competitiveness. However, this effort failed, and Koreancompanies were forced to find alternatives to boost wage stability, labor flexibility, and workplaceinnovation in order to ensure quality competitiveness and price competitiveness at the same time. The new strategy intensified industrial conflicts further, and Korean large enterprises needed toexternalize their industrial conflicts. The mechanism to externalize labor-management conflict was formed at the national, industrial,and company levels. At the national level, large enterprises utilized social concertation and socialpacts to externalize conflicts during the process of increasing labor market flexibility. At the industriallevel, Korean large companies passed their burden to subcontracting companies during the processof cost reduction and quality enhancement by taking advantage of their dominant positions oversubcontractors. At the company level, Korean large companies entrenched employment stabilityand passed the cost of labor conflicts on to non-regular workers newly employed by subcontractors.

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