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A breaking news report concerning the death of late Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee on Oct. 25. (Yonhap News)

Our thoughts are with the family of late Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who died on Oct. 25. He had been hospitalized for six years and five months after losing consciousness following an acute myocardial infarction in May 2014.

Lee’s life contained a dramatic mixture of glory and shame. His pioneering investment in and development of semiconductors and mobile phones turned Samsung into one of the world’s leading companies and helped bolster the national economy.

But at the same time, his dubious ties with politicians, the illegalities in his scheme to pass down control over Samsung to his son, and his anti-union policy cast a dark shadow on Korean society. That’s why Lee’s passing holds more significance than the death of an ordinary chaebol leader.

After being named chairman of the Samsung Group in 1987, Lee shepherded it through a period of growth, in which Samsung became not only Korea’s best-known company, but a truly global company. According to a 2020 survey by Interbrand, the Samsung Electronics brand is worth US$62.3 billion, the fifth highest in the world. In effect, Lee has kept the promise he made upon taking the helm to make Samsung one of the world’s top companies.

One of the first topics brought up when explaining Lee’s achievements at the group is the “New Management” initiative that he announced in 1993. During a conference with the company’s top managers in Frankfurt, Germany, Lee said that the company needed to switch its focus from quantity to quality. That was when Lee gave the unforgettable advice to “change everything but the wife and kids.”

The emphasis on product quality enabled Samsung to improve its product competitiveness by leaps and bounds. While Samsung’s success today was obviously made possible by the dedication of its workers and the support of the South Korean public, that success would have been impossible without Lee’s bold decisions and innovation.

But Lee’s successes are overshadowed by numerous instances in which he skirted the law. His most serious failing was his continuation of the practice of using illicit funds to keep politicians on his side, a practice he’d learned from his father and company founder Lee Byung-chull.

Samsung has also distorted Korean society by using its money to wield immense influence on the press, attorneys, and education, leading some to sarcastically refer to Korea as the “Republic of Samsung.” That influence is symbolized by the mortifying term “Samsung scholarship student,” which refers to those brought under Samsung’s sway by financial incentives.

Samsung’s official “no union” policy, which consisted of blocking the establishment of labor unions in the group and crushing anyone who tried to establish one, left deep wounds in its workers.

Lee Kun-hee’s campaign to pass down management rights over the group to his son, Lee Jae-yong, through means both quasi-legal and illegal, is still a problem today. Lee Kun-hee himself was given money through a questionable nonprofit foundation, and his three children, including Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, have faced harsh criticism for a controversial scheme to evade taxes on their inheritance. Rather than setting a good example for the business community, Korea’s most famous company has set a terrible one. That’s truly lamentable.

In addition to upholding and building on Lee’s successes, Samsung is also saddled with the task of cleaning up the darker side of his legacy. Neither of those are easy tasks: the economic environment both in Korea and elsewhere are more uncertain than ever before, and Lee Jae-yong is currently being tried for illegal aspects of his campaign to inherit control of the Samsung Group and for bribery in the influence-peddling scandal that toppled former President Park Geun-hye.

Nevertheless, we hope that Lee and other company executives will take a more responsible and law-abiding approach to management that will enable Samsung to rise to the next level.

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]