The Colonial Origins of Korean Enterprise: 1910-1945South Korean conglomerates, or chaebol, such as Hyundai and Samsung play a far more important role in Korean economy than do comparable large firms in the United States' and Japanese economies. Despite the importance of the chaebol to the rapid postwar development of the Korean economy, little has been written about their origins during the Japanese occupation. Through case studies of local ownership in major financial, commercial and industrial