Professor Jaeyong Song (Graduate School of Business) was one of the ten recipients of the 2020 Excellence in Research Award. He is a renowned scholar in the field of international business and strategy. His works have been published by various top journals, and he is the first Korean professor to serve as chair of the International Management Division, Academy of Management. In recognition of his academic efforts and achievements, he has been elected as an Academy of International Business (AIB) Fellow as well as a Korean Academy of Science and Technology Fellow. He has also served as an editor of the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS), a top business journal. In 2014, he received the Maeil Economic Daily Book of the Year Award as well as the Korean Academic Society of Business Administration (KASBA) SERI Best Researcher Award.

The English Editors team reached out to him to learn more about his research philosophy. The following is an edited transcript of the interview.

Professor Jaeyong Song (Graduate School of Business), Recipient of the 2020 Excellence in Research Award

Our biggest congratulations for winning the 2020 Excellence in Research Award. Could you share how you felt upon receiving it?

For a professor like myself, teaching and research are considered to be the two main pillars of achievement. Having already received the Teaching Award in 2009, I am especially happy to receive the 2020 Research Award, as it feels like I have received a certification from SNU that I have faithfully carried out my role as a professor. Considering that the Research Award was awarded based on 10 years of academic contribution, and that much of the academic research in question was co-authored with my students, I believe that this award is not mine alone, but jointly shared with my lab community, and this makes the award more meaningful. I am deeply grateful to my mentors, including Dong-Sung Cho and Bruce Kogut.

You are renowned for your expertise in the field of international business and strategy. Please introduce your main research interests and tell us how you have come to devote your life to this field.

Among many interesting topics in the field of international business and strategy, my research focuses on global innovation strategies. In light of corporate activities becoming increasingly global and multinational companies emerging as principal players in the global economy, I have studied the foreign direct investment and global network strategies of multinational companies for quite a long time. Recently, I’ve been paying special attention to the talent/knowledge sourcing and innovation activities of multinational firms.

As for how I became interested in the field, it started off with my being selected as an undergraduate assistant for Professor Dong-Sung Cho, who taught international business and strategy. That experience naturally led me to major in the same field as Professor Cho’s, and the more I studied, the more I realized that the field was just right for me. That’s how I decided to pursue my PhD in international business and strategy.

We heard that you have been serving as chair of the International Management Division of the Academy of Management since last August. Could you introduce Academy of Management, and what you have been working on since your appointment?

Established in 1936, the Academy of Management is the largest professional association in the field of business, and its membership amounts to about 20,000 scholars worldwide. Although it was established in the US, now with about half the members working outside of the US, it has come to be thought of as a global association. About 12,000 scholars from around the world attend the annual meeting held in North America every August. The members of the Academy of Management mostly consist of scholars in the fields of management, such as human resources, organizational behavior, international management, and entrepreneurship. The International Management Division, whose membership amounts to 2,500, is one of the top 5 of the 26 divisions of the association.

I was appointed chair in the midst of the pandemic, and even our annual meeting had to be held online. The coronavirus is certainly a crisis for the Academy, but it can also serve as an opportunity to foster online academic activities, which had not gained much attention before. In this light, I have been hosting various webinars once or twice every month. I’m happy to say that the webinars have been a great success, with 200-400 members registering for each during 2020 4Q .

What are your future research plans?

Whereas earlier in my career I focused on publishing my research in top journals, recently my focus has been more on conducting research that can help Korean firms strengthen their global competitiveness. With this in mind, I have conducted extensive research on Samsung, leading to my publication of The Samsung Way and an article on the Harvard Business Review. Furthermore, in my publications Smart Management and Perfect Change I have proposed various means for fostering strategic mindsets among corporate workers, as well as for increasing global competitiveness. I plan to continue with this kind of research in the future.

Could you provide some helpful advice to SNU students?

When I first came to Korea 20 years ago after a few years of teaching at Columbia, one of my biggest goals was to foster the growth of great students. Indeed, my students have shown outstanding academic achievements, and several of them have gone abroad to pursue PhDs at top universities around the world. They have now become professors at prestigious institutions including my alma mater, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon, London Business School, University of Southern California, Arizona State University, Georgia Tech, McGill, and HEC Paris. Considering that it’s a global age, and that Korean universities have now become world-class, SNU students, if they study hard, can now become PhDs and professors at top universities around the world and secure senior management positions in multinational companies. So I would advise students to dream high and work hard. When I first went abroad to pursue my PhD, I never thought that I could become a professor at Columbia. But I tried my best and achieved far more than I had ever expected. I believe that current SNU students, if they dream high and work hard, can achieve everything that they dream of.

Written by Chaehyun Kim, SNU English Editor, michelle25@snu.ac.kr
Reviewed by Professor Travis Smith, Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, tlsmith@snu.ac.kr