Fields of Research

1. Spirit and thought

What exactly is the thing called “Tae-Joonism”. This strand traces where his habit of achieving for the country rather than for himself came from, and how it worked in practice — read in turn through philosophy, sociology and religious studies, so that a sense of martyr-like duty, Wang Yangming’s moral learning, a soldier’s indifference to his own life, and the Confucian scholar ideal are laid over one another on the same man.

2. Leadership

The strand management scholars have worked longest. His leadership — perfectionism, insistence on principle, stubbornness, courage, a refusal to yield — is modelled using grounded theory and the critical incident technique. Other papers read his speeches by linguistic analysis to relate his own state of mind to the state of the organisation, and take up workplace innovation and integrity in leadership.

3. Management philosophy and entrepreneurship

The principles formed over twenty-five years of building and running a steelworks: the relation between a soldier’s discipline and an entrepreneur’s, the Stockdale paradox of facing facts and still prevailing, the accumulation of trust into synergy, and an entrepreneurship that creates durable value — down to cases in human resource management, technology management and the construction of the Pohang works itself.

4. Education for the nation, and running a university

From serving the nation through steel to serving it through education. This strand reads the founding and running of the POSCO schools and of POSTECH as a case in university management, and keeps the record of the judgements and difficulties of the founding years.

5. The political economy of industrialisation, and the developing world

Placing POSCO’s success inside the history of Korean economic growth rather than inside one company. It examines both faces of the political economy of the development decades and asks whether the growth model can be carried to other countries. Volume 8 was published in Korean and English together for that reason.

Carried into the classroom

The research did not stop at books. It was rewritten as teaching material for secondary and university students, with a workbook for leadership courses.

Keeping the record

Research needs a record to stand on: the biography, the recollections, the chronology. The Institute gathers and maintains that record as well.

From research to programmes (2013–2015)

The Institute’s first programme plan after it opened. Two of the textbooks and the record of POSTECH’s founding were in fact published.

포스코의 창업정신과 청암의 리더십 대학교재 개발

- 미래 세대의 중심인 대학생을 대상으로 포스코 창업정신과 박태준 리더십의 전파를 통한 장의, 도전, 사회공헌 정신 고취

- 이를 체계적으로 전파하기 위해 통합 교재를 개발하고 대학에 박태준 기업가정신ㆍ성공리더십 과정 개설

박태준 창의 리더십 청소년용 교재 개발

미래사회의 희망인 청소년을 대상으로 박태준의 창의정신, 도전정신, 리더십 등을 체계적으로 교육, 전승함으로써 올바른 인생관 형성에 기여

한국 근대화 성공모델의 해외전파

포스코청암재단의 ‘아시아학생한국유학장학생’ 출신 중 역량 있는 학자를 선별, 산업화 시대의 박태준 사상과 성공방정식을 해당국가(베트남 등)에 연구, 전파

포스텍 건학이념 계승·발전을 위한 교재 제작 및 교육

- 포스텍 설립 당시(1986년) 참여인사(포스텍, POSCO)의 은퇴 및 포스텍 구성원들의 교체에 따라 설립 당시의 건학이념 인식이 퇴색되어 가고 있음 - 포스텍의 지속적 발전을 위해서는 박태준 설립이사장의 건학이념과 설립 당시의 어려움 극복 사례 등에 대한 체계적 정리 및 교육 필요