Samsung's 'Donghaeng (同行)' Promise Shines Brighter Than Investment and Employment Goals

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyewon] As Samsung Group surpasses the investment and job creation goals announced two years ago, leading economic revitalization, its unique philosophy of 'Donghaeng (同行)'?which has been relatively overshadowed by its dazzling achievements?is being reexamined. In particular, Samsung has taken the lead as a representative of the business community in supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) struggling due to the impact of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and in disaster recovery efforts following the prolonged monsoon season and heavy rains.

According to the business community on the 14th, Samsung is redefining its CSR vision and themes in connection with its management philosophy and core values of 'People First and Pursuing Mutual Growth,' focusing its capabilities and resources on solving social challenges such as youth unemployment and polarization. This is in line with Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong’s firm Donghaeng vision that "sharing together and growing together is the path to becoming the world’s best."

Specifically, under the vision of 'Together to the Future! Enabling People,' Samsung concentrates its traditional social contributions on youth education and strives to realize reciprocal CSR through win-win cooperation programs (enhancing SME competitiveness, fostering startups, and nurturing future technologies for national science and technology advancement).

A representative example is the smart factory construction support project, which plans to invest 100 billion KRW by 2022 to support a total of 2,500 companies. The project was conducted for about 1,070 companies over two years starting in 2018, and this year, Samsung intends to focus on strengthening and advancing the program.

Samsung’s steady expansion of support for partner companies aims to create a mutually beneficial industrial ecosystem. From 2018 to the first half of this year, it provided incentives totaling 192.7 billion KRW to excellent semiconductor partners and supported about 450 billion KRW over three years (2018?2020) by reflecting minimum wage increases in delivery prices. Linked to the 'Semiconductor Vision 2030,' Samsung provides intellectual property (IP) and technical education to domestic fabless companies and has been conducting industry-academia cooperation projects worth 100 billion KRW annually since 2018.

The Donghaeng philosophy led by Vice Chairman Lee shone even brighter in times of crisis. Immediately after the COVID-19 outbreak in February, Samsung was the first among major groups to donate more than 60 billion KRW to help overcome the crisis, setting an example.

At that time, Vice Chairman Lee said, "Samsung, which has grown with the support of the people, must share and stand together with our society in times like these," and encouraged, "Let us do our utmost, however small, for those suffering from this incident or dedicating themselves to overcoming the crisis." In particular, Samsung provided the Samsung Human Resources Development Center’s Yeongdeok Training Center as a residential treatment center for mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients in March and April, dispatching medical staff from Samsung Medical Center to treat 254 admitted patients.

On the 7th, Samsung donated 3 billion KRW to the Korean Red Cross to assist in recovery efforts in areas affected by the heavy rains. This was the fastest move among major groups, followed by a relay of warm-hearted support from Hyundai Motor, SK, LG, and others in the business community.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.