Yah, I worked at Samsung for a while and my (korean) wife worked at a 재벌 too. Here's what I think it is: Bureaucratic and inefficient till someone important (and usually thoughtful) says jump. Then absolutely everyone says "how high?" and then they all jump. I think this is conducive to risk taking, and if you're generally directionally correct in your bets, the bureaucracy and inefficiency matter less because big bets take time anyway and lots businesses suck so it's ok to be a bit slow. I don't see them getting into much analysis paralysis at the top of the companies, they move on the big bets, and that's half the battle.