Why was I interested in interviewing Stephen? He is a South Korean scholar whose work bridges management, ethics, labor relations, and peacebuilding. He serves as Dean of the School of Management at Kyung Hee University—one of Asia’s leading universities—and directs its Institute for Peace through Commerce, an initiative that explores how responsible business can contribute to international cooperation and human development. A specialist in human resource management, industrial relations, corporate social responsibility, and responsible management education, he has played a prominent role in the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), serving on its Advisory Board after years of helping shape its global and Asian initiatives. His research and leadership challenge the traditional view of business as merely an economic activity, arguing instead that commerce, when grounded in human dignity and ethical leadership, can become a powerful instrument for peace and the common good.
This interview is a must-read because it moves far beyond conventional discussions of management, leadership, or business education. Drawing from a lifetime shaped by South Korea’s remarkable economic transformation, Catholic social thought, and decades of academic leadership, Stephen reflects on some of the defining questions of our time: whether artificial intelligence can remain at the service of humanity, how commerce might foster peace rather than conflict, why universities should form character as much as competence, and what future leaders owe to society. Thoughtful, deeply human, and intellectually rich, this conversation invites readers to reconsider the moral purpose of business and the enduring relationship between education, responsibility, and human dignity.
Here is our exchange:
Where are you originally from, and what aspects of your childhood there most shaped who you are today?
I am originally from South Korea, a country whose modern history has been shaped by war, national division, rapid reconstruction, industrialization, democratization, and globalization. To grow up in Korea was to live with a strong awareness that peace, development, and education are not abstract ideas. They are historical realities that affect families, communities, institutions, and the future of a nation.
One aspect of my childhood that deeply shaped me was the sense that life must be lived with responsibility. Korea’s postwar generations carried a strong belief that education, discipline, and hard work could transform not only individual lives but also society. I absorbed this atmosphere from an early age. It taught me that personal success alone is never enough. One’s life should contribute to something larger—family, community, nation, and ultimately humanity.
I also grew up in a society where the memory of conflict and the aspiration for peace existed side by side. The Korean Peninsula remains divided, and that reality has always made the idea of peace very concrete to me. Peace is not simply the absence of war. It is the patient creation of trust, dignity, institutions, and mutual recognition.
How would you describe your family environment growing up, and who were the most influential figures in your early life?
My family environment placed a high value on education, responsibility, and public service. The most influential figure in my early life was certainly my late father. He was a university professor and one of the first-generation scholars and educators in the field of labor-management relations in Korea. He studied labor relations at Harvard and devoted much of his academic life to educating responsible leaders in both labor and management.
His philosophy was very important to me. He believed that Korea, especially during its early and maturing stages of industrialization, needed not only productive enterprises but also responsible labor movement leaders and constructive managers. For him, labor-management relations were not merely about wages, contracts, or disputes. They were about whether a rapidly industrializing society could build fairness, trust, dialogue, and shared responsibility.
His position was not narrowly pro-labor or pro-management. Rather, he believed that both sides needed responsible leadership. Labor leaders needed a constructive and socially responsible vision, and managers needed to understand human dignity, fairness, and the long-term health of society. This was a crucial issue for Korea as it moved through industrialization and social transformation.
Through my father, I learned that work is not simply an economic transaction. It is a human and social relationship. I also learned that conflict, if handled responsibly, can become a process of institution-building and mutual recognition. This early influence later shaped my own academic interests in human resource management, industrial relations, labor-management cooperation, corporate social responsibility, responsible management education, and peace through commerce.
Were there particular family or cultural traditions that played a lasting role in shaping your values or worldview?
Yes. In Korean culture, family, education, respect for elders, and responsibility to the community are very important. These values shaped my early understanding of life. They taught me that an individual is never completely separate from others. We are formed by relationships, obligations, gratitude, and shared history.
Another lasting influence came from my educational experience at Sogang University, a Jesuit institution in Seoul. During my student years there, I was deeply influenced by many American Jesuit priest-professors. They represented a model of education that combined intellectual rigor, humanistic concern, discipline, reflection, openness to the world, and service. They taught not only through lectures but through the way they lived their vocation as educators.
That experience helped me understand education as human formation, not merely the transmission of knowledge. Later, this became very important in my thinking about management education. A business school should not only train students to become competent professionals. It should also help them develop conscience, judgment, responsibility, and a deeper sense of purpose.
My continuing engagement with Catholic social thought and labor issues has also shaped my worldview. I currently serve as a member of the Labor Pastoral Committee of the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul. This engagement has continually reminded me that the dignity of work is not an abstract principle. It is lived through the real experiences of workers, families, firms, and communities.
What initially drew you to the field you chose to study, and was there a moment when you realized it was the right path for you?
I was initially drawn to management because it seemed to be a field where many important dimensions of human life come together: work, organizations, leadership, cooperation, conflict, value creation, and social responsibility. Management is often seen as a practical field, and it certainly is. But I came to see that it is also a deeply human one.
My interest was also influenced by my father’s work in labor-management relations. From him, I learned that organizations are not only systems of production. They are communities of human beings. They can either respect or diminish human dignity. They can create trust or destroy it. They can contribute to social development or deepen social conflict.
There was not one single dramatic moment when I realized this was the right path. Rather, my conviction grew gradually. Over time, I came to see that management education should not only ask, “What can students do after graduation?” It should also ask, “What kind of people are they becoming through business education?” That question has guided much of my academic and professional life.
At what age did you begin working, and what did your first job teach you about responsibility or independence?
My earliest meaningful work experience was during my early twenties, when I was studying in Minnesota. I worked as an assistant in the university library. It was a modest position, but it remains very vivid in my memory. The work required punctuality, reliability, attention to detail, and respect for the quiet rhythm of an academic community.
At that age, I was still a young international student learning how to live independently in another country. Working in the library taught me that responsibility is not an abstract virtue. It means showing up on time, doing one’s part carefully, respecting colleagues, and understanding that even small tasks contribute to the functioning of a larger institution. I also experienced the warmth of Minnesota’s organizational culture—its kindness, informality, trust, and quiet respect for people. That experience helped me realize that work could be both disciplined and humane.
After completing my Ph.D. in Minnesota, I also worked as a researcher for the Minnesota state government. That was another important experience. It gave me a deeper appreciation for meaningful work in public service and for the role of research in improving institutions and public policy. I began to understand more clearly that knowledge is not only for academic publication; it can also serve communities, workers, organizations, and society.
These experiences taught me that work is never simply about the individual. It is always relational. Our work affects colleagues, students, families, institutions, and communities. Looking back, my early work experiences in Minnesota helped me understand the dignity of work, the importance of a humane organizational culture, and the quiet satisfaction that comes from doing meaningful work responsibly.
How would you describe your current professional role, and what aspects of it do you find most meaningful?
I currently serve as Professor and Dean of the School of Management at Kyung Hee University and as Director of the Institute for Peace through Commerce. I am also honored to serve as a member of the UN PRME Advisory Board. These roles allow me to bring together several long-standing concerns in my life: responsible management education, human dignity, labor, peace, sustainability, and the common good.
What I find most meaningful is the opportunity to shape management education at an institutional level. A dean is not only an administrator. A dean has the responsibility to help a school ask fundamental questions: What is our mission? What kind of leaders are we forming? What kind of society do we hope our graduates will help create?
Kyung Hee University’s founding philosophy of “creating a civilized world” has provided a deeply resonant institutional home for my work. The university also has a rich tradition of world peace initiatives. Within this broader tradition, the Kyung Hee University School of Management seeks to educate business leaders who can contribute not only to markets but also to society, peace, sustainability, and the common good.
This alignment between my personal vocation and the university’s mission is one of the most meaningful aspects of my current role. At Kyung Hee, I have found an institutional context where my commitment to responsible management, human dignity, peace through commerce, and the moral purpose of education can come together.
Your work sits at the intersection of management, global business, and peace through commerce. Do you believe business can genuinely serve as a force for peace, or do economic relationships merely reduce the costs of conflict without addressing its underlying causes?
I do not believe that business automatically creates peace. History teaches us that economic interdependence alone cannot eliminate conflict, injustice, fear, or historical grievances. Commercial relationships may reduce the immediate costs of conflict, but they do not necessarily address its deeper causes.
However, I do believe that responsible commerce can contribute to peace. When business is guided by reciprocity, fairness, trust, respect for human dignity, and long-term responsibility, it can create practices of cooperation. It can help people recognize mutual dependence. It can build channels of communication where political relationships may be difficult. It can also create shared interests that make peace more imaginable.
Peace through commerce is not a mechanical law. It is a moral, institutional, and educational project. Business can become a force for peace only when it is embedded in responsible institutions and led by people who understand that commerce is not merely about exchange but about relationships.
As Director of the Institute for Peace through Commerce, you have explored the relationship between markets and international cooperation. What is the most common misconception people hold about the ability of economic integration to promote stability between nations?
The most common misconception is that economic integration by itself is sufficient to produce stability. It is not. Economic integration can create interdependence, but interdependence can be interpreted in different ways. It can produce trust, but it can also produce vulnerability, fear, dependency, or resentment.
For economic integration to promote stability, it must be accompanied by fairness, institutional trust, cultural understanding, and political wisdom. Markets need moral and institutional foundations. Without those foundations, economic relationships may become sources of tension rather than peace.
Another misconception is that peace through commerce is a soft or naïve idea. In fact, it requires very serious work: building institutions, educating responsible leaders, managing conflict, respecting cultural differences, and creating systems of shared benefit. Peace through commerce is not sentimental. It is demanding.
In an era marked by geopolitical fragmentation, trade disputes, and growing strategic competition, has your confidence in the idea of peace through commerce strengthened or weakened, and why?
My confidence has become more realistic. I would not say simply that it has strengthened or weakened. The current global environment reminds us that commerce alone cannot overcome geopolitical rivalry. Trade can become politicized. Supply chains can become instruments of strategic competition. Economic nationalism can reshape the global economy.
But precisely because of this fragmentation, I believe the idea of peace through commerce remains important. We need to ask what kind of commerce can help prevent further fragmentation. We need responsible business leaders who understand geopolitical risk, cultural differences, sustainability, and human dignity. We need business education that teaches students not only how to compete but how to build trust across differences.
In a polarized world, commerce must be reimagined as a practice of responsible interdependence. My hope is not based on naïve optimism. It is based on the belief that human beings can still create institutions and relationships that make cooperation possible.
South Korea’s economic transformation is often regarded as one of the most remarkable development stories of the modern era. What lessons from that experience are most relevant today, and which lessons are frequently misunderstood or misapplied by policymakers elsewhere?
One important lesson from Korea’s experience is the transformative power of education, institutional commitment, and collective aspiration. Korea’s development was not simply the result of markets or state policy alone. It involved families investing in education, workers making sacrifices, entrepreneurs taking risks, public institutions pursuing development, and society gradually building greater capacity.
Another lesson is that economic growth can lift many people out of poverty and create new possibilities for human development. That should not be forgotten. For societies facing poverty, growth matters. But the Korean experience is sometimes misunderstood when people focus only on speed, discipline, or industrial policy. Development is not only about rapid growth. It also raises difficult questions about labor rights, inequality, social cohesion, environmental sustainability, democracy, and human dignity. Korea’s experience should not be reduced to a simple formula that can be copied elsewhere.
The deeper lesson is that development must become more human as it matures. Economic success must eventually ask: What kind of society are we building? Are people living with dignity? Are institutions trustworthy? Are communities cohesive? Are we contributing to peace?
Many business schools emphasize globalization, yet the global economy appears to be moving toward greater regionalization and economic nationalism. How should management education adapt to this changing reality?
Management education should not abandon globalization, but it must teach a more mature understanding of it. Globalization is not disappearing. It is becoming more complex, contested, regionalized, and politically sensitive.
Business students today must understand supply chains, geopolitical risk, cultural differences, sustainability, technological disruption, and institutional diversity. They must learn that global business is not simply about entering new markets. It is about understanding the human, political, ecological, and cultural consequences of business decisions.
In this context, responsible management education becomes even more important. Business schools should prepare students to build trust across differences. They should cultivate cultural humility, ethical judgment, and long-term thinking. The future of management education should not be less global, but more human.
You have spent your career studying management in an international context. What leadership quality do you believe is becoming more important as organizations operate in increasingly uncertain and polarized environments?
I believe the most important quality is moral courage combined with humility. In uncertain and polarized environments, leaders must listen carefully, acknowledge complexity, resist short-term pressures, and take responsibility for the consequences of their decisions.
Technical competence remains important, but it is not enough. Leaders today must be able to build trust across differences. They must be willing to speak honestly when silence is easier. They must be able to act responsibly when incentives push them toward narrow self-interest.
The most difficult leadership quality is often not intelligence. It is the courage to remain responsible when responsibility is costly. In a polarized world, leadership is increasingly about the patient work of building trust.
Business leaders are often encouraged to maximize shareholder value while simultaneously addressing broader societal challenges. Do you believe these objectives can be reconciled, or do they inevitably come into conflict?
They can be reconciled, but not if shareholder value is understood narrowly and only in the short term. If the purpose of business is reduced to short-term financial extraction, then broader societal responsibilities will often appear as burdens or constraints. But if business is understood as a social institution that creates value over time, then the well-being of workers, customers, communities, suppliers, ecosystems, and institutions becomes part of long-term value creation. Shareholders also depend on the health of these broader systems.
The deeper question is not simply whether business serves shareholders or stakeholders. The deeper question is whether business understands itself as entrusted with power and responsibility. Responsible business leadership requires governance, incentives, measurement, and education that make long-term stakeholder value a reality.
The Korean Peninsula remains one of the world’s most enduring geopolitical flashpoints. How has living and working in that context shaped your understanding of leadership, risk, and long-term strategic thinking?
Living on the Korean Peninsula teaches us that peace is fragile and unfinished. It also teaches patience. Some problems cannot be solved quickly. They require long-term thinking, historical understanding, emotional discipline, and the ability to hold hope and realism together.
This context has shaped my understanding of leadership. Leaders must manage risk, but they must also imagine possibilities beyond fear. They must understand the weight of history without becoming imprisoned by it. They must build institutions and relationships that can endure beyond immediate political cycles.
For me, the Korean Peninsula has made peace a concrete responsibility rather than an abstract ideal. It has also reinforced my belief that education, business, and civil society all have roles to play in creating conditions for dialogue, trust, and mutual recognition.
Artificial intelligence is expected to transform industries and labor markets worldwide. What concerns you most about the impact of AI on management practices and organizational decision-making?
My greatest concern is not technology itself, but the possibility that organizations may use technology to distance themselves from responsibility for its human consequences. AI can support better decisions, reduce repetitive work, and expand access to knowledge. But it can also intensify surveillance, bias, exclusion, depersonalization, and opaque decision-making.
In management, there is a danger that human judgment may be replaced by algorithmic authority without sufficient accountability. Workers may become data points. Customers may become behavioral profiles. Managers may rely on systems they do not fully understand. In such a situation, efficiency may increase, but responsibility may become more difficult to locate.
Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, speaks powerfully to this moment. What I find especially important in that document is its insistence that technological progress must be judged by whether it serves the integral dignity of the human person. This is highly relevant for management. AI should not be evaluated only by productivity, speed, cost reduction, or predictive accuracy. It should also be evaluated by whether it protects meaningful work, strengthens human participation, supports responsible judgment, and contributes to human flourishing.
From the perspective of labor dignity and responsible management, the key question is not only what AI can do. The question is what kind of human beings and institutions we become when we use it. If AI helps managers make wiser, fairer, and more humane decisions, it can be a great gift. But if it allows organizations to avoid responsibility, weaken solidarity, or treat human beings merely as data, then it becomes dangerous. The central task is to ensure that artificial intelligence remains at the service of human dignity, meaningful work, and the common good.
This is why management education in the age of AI must teach not only digital competence, but also moral responsibility, human judgment, and reverence for the dignity of work.
Universities increasingly speak about cultivating responsible leaders. What aspect of leadership do you believe is most difficult to teach in a classroom setting, yet most critical for success?
The most difficult aspect to teach is moral judgment in situations of pressure. In a classroom, students can discuss ethics and responsibility in a relatively safe environment. But in real organizations, decisions are made under constraints: fear, ambition, hierarchy, incentives, uncertainty, and peer pressure.
Responsible leadership requires more than knowing what is right. It requires the courage to act responsibly when doing so may be inconvenient, unpopular, or costly. It also requires humility—the willingness to listen, learn, and recognize the limits of one’s own perspective. This is why I believe management education must be about formation, not only instruction. We must help students develop habits of reflection, empathy, responsibility, and courage before they enter positions of power.
Cross-cultural management has become a central theme in global business education. What is a lesson about cultural understanding that many executives learn too late in their careers?
Many executives learn too late that cross-cultural understanding is not mainly about etiquette. It is not simply about knowing how to exchange business cards, conduct meetings, or negotiate in another country.
At a deeper level, cultural understanding is about humility. It is the willingness to recognize that others may organize meaning, trust, dignity, responsibility, and authority differently from oneself. Without humility, knowledge of cultural differences can become superficial.
Executives often assume that their own way of thinking is universal because it has worked in their own environment. But global leadership requires the disciplined capacity to see the world from another person’s historical and cultural perspective. That capacity is essential not only for business success, but also for peace.
The concept of stakeholder capitalism has gained significant attention in recent years. Do you see it as a meaningful evolution in business thinking, or as a response to declining public trust in corporations?
I see it as both. Stakeholder capitalism is a meaningful evolution because it recognizes that business affects many groups and depends on the health of broader social and ecological systems. It challenges the narrow view that firms exist only to maximize short-term returns for shareholders.
At the same time, it is also a response to declining public trust. Many people have seen corporations benefit from society while avoiding responsibility for inequality, environmental damage, labor insecurity, or social fragmentation. Stakeholder capitalism becomes credible only when it moves from language to practice. That means governance, incentives, measurement, accountability, and leadership formation. Without these, stakeholder capitalism can become rhetoric. With them, it can help restore trust in business as a responsible social institution.
As both a dean and a scholar, where have you found the greatest tension between academic ideals and the practical realities of preparing students for the modern business world?
The greatest tension lies between formation and employability. Universities want to form thoughtful, responsible, and humane individuals. Students and families, understandably, also want education to lead to employment and career success.
These goals should not be opposed, but in practice they can become separated. Business schools may feel pressure to focus on technical skills, rankings, placement outcomes, and market demands. These are important, but they are not sufficient.
As a dean and scholar, I believe we must prepare students for the real world without surrendering to the narrowest definition of that world. The modern business world needs technical competence, but it also needs ethical judgment, cultural understanding, ecological awareness, and the ability to build trust. The challenge is to integrate professional preparation with human formation.
Economic growth has lifted millions out of poverty across Asia, yet it has also been accompanied by concerns about inequality, sustainability, and social cohesion. Which of these challenges do you believe deserves far greater attention from business leaders?
All three are important, but I would emphasize social cohesion. Inequality and sustainability are urgent, but when social cohesion breaks down, societies lose the capacity to address either of them collectively. Business leaders need to understand that firms operate within social systems. If communities feel excluded, if workers feel disposable, if young people lose hope, and if citizens no longer trust institutions, economic growth becomes fragile. Social cohesion is not a soft issue. It is a foundation for long-term development.
In Asia, the development story has been remarkable, but the next stage must ask deeper questions. Can growth become more inclusive? Can technology serve human dignity? Can business contribute to trust rather than fragmentation? These questions deserve much greater attention.
When future historians assess the role of business in the twenty-first century, what do you hope they will conclude about the contribution of commerce to peace, human development, and international understanding—and what could prevent that outcome from being realized?
I hope future historians will say that business in the twenty-first century helped humanity move from narrow self-interest toward shared responsibility. I hope they will conclude that commerce contributed to human development, reduced poverty, created meaningful work, supported innovation, and built bridges across cultures and nations.
I also hope they will say that business education played an important role in this transformation by forming leaders who understood dignity, sustainability, peace, and the common good. But this outcome is not guaranteed. It could be prevented by short-termism, greed, dehumanizing technology, ecological irresponsibility, nationalism, inequality, and the collapse of trust. Commerce can connect people, but it can also exploit them. It can build peace, but it can also deepen dependency and resentment.
The future role of business depends on the moral quality of the institutions and leaders we form today.
Has there been a book, film, or work of art that significantly influenced the way you see the world or think about your work?
There have been many influences, but Catholic social teaching on the dignity of work has been especially important to me. Texts such as Pope John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens have helped me think more deeply about work not merely as labor input or economic activity, but as a fundamental expression of human dignity, creativity, participation, and social responsibility.
This perspective resonates with my father’s work in labor-management relations and with my own academic interests. It also connects with my continuing engagement with the Labor Pastoral Committee of the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul.
More broadly, works that explore human dignity, peace, and responsibility have influenced me more than those that offer purely technical solutions. They remind me that the most important question is often not, “How can we become more efficient?” but, “How can we become more human?”
Looking at younger generations today, what gives you the greatest sense of hope, and what concerns you the most?
What gives me hope is that many young people are deeply sensitive to questions of justice, sustainability, meaning, and human dignity. They often do not want merely to succeed in conventional terms. They want their work to matter. They want institutions to be more responsible. They are more globally aware and more willing to question old assumptions.
What concerns me is that they are growing up in a world of anxiety, polarization, digital distraction, and declining trust. Many young people feel pressure to compete constantly while also facing uncertainty about climate, technology, employment, and social stability.
The responsibility of educators is to help them transform anxiety into purpose. We must help them see that they are not merely adapting to the future. They can help shape it.
If you could spend a full day with any historical figure, who would you choose, and what questions would you want to ask them?
I might choose Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit missionary and scholar who lived between cultures and sought dialogue between East and West. His life represents intellectual humility, cultural learning, and the difficult art of translation across civilizations.
I would ask him how he cultivated patience in the face of misunderstanding. I would ask how he understood friendship across deep cultural differences. I would also ask what he would advise us today, at a time when the world is technologically connected but often culturally and politically fragmented. His example is meaningful to me because peace requires more than contact. It requires the patient work of understanding.
If you were asked to teach a class on a subject completely unrelated to your profession, what would it be, and what would you hope students take away from it?
I would like to teach a class called The Art of Listening. It may sound simple, but listening is one of the most difficult and necessary human practices.
The course would not be about communication techniques alone. It would explore listening in music, literature, friendship, leadership, interreligious dialogue, labor-management relations, diplomacy, and peacebuilding. I would hope students learn that listening is not passive. It is an active form of respect.
In a polarized world, many people speak in order to win. Fewer people listen in order to understand. I would hope students take away the idea that listening is one of the foundations of human dignity and peace.
If you could ensure that one human value is never lost in society, which value would you choose, and why?
I would choose the recognition of human dignity. If we lose that, even intelligence, innovation, wealth, and power can become dangerous.
Human dignity means that no person should be treated merely as an instrument, a statistic, a market segment, a labor input, or a problem to be managed. It is the foundation of responsible leadership, just institutions, meaningful work, and peace.
In business education, this value is essential. Students must learn how to analyze markets and organizations, but they must also learn to see the human beings affected by their decisions.
Humanity is facing radical changes. To name just ten: geopolitical instability, climate change, economic inequalities, technological risks, public health challenges, political polarization, resource scarcity, humanitarian crises, misinformation, and disparities in global healthcare access. If, in an imaginative exercise, you had the power to solve one of these problems, which one would you choose first and why?
I would begin with the restoration of trust, which is closely related to political polarization and misinformation. Many of the other problems—climate change, inequality, public health, technological governance, humanitarian crises, and peace—require collective action. But collective action becomes almost impossible when trust collapses.
Without trust, even good science becomes disputed, good policy becomes politicized, and good technology becomes feared or misused. Trust does not mean naïve agreement. It means the basic confidence that institutions, leaders, communities, and citizens can act with some degree of honesty and responsibility. Restoring trust would not solve every problem automatically. But without trust, we cannot solve the most urgent problems of our time.
What do you believe human beings owe one another, both as individuals and as members of a global society?
We owe one another recognition of dignity. We owe one another truthfulness, responsibility, compassion, and the willingness to build institutions that protect the vulnerable and enable human flourishing.
As individuals, we owe one another the refusal to reduce another person to a function or category. As members of a global society, we owe one another more than non-interference. We owe one another the patient work of creating conditions in which people can live with dignity, security, meaningful work, and hope.
In a globalized world, our decisions affect people we may never meet. That makes responsibility more difficult, but also more necessary.
Interviews often focus on successes. Could you share something from 2025 that did not unfold as you expected, and what that experience taught you?
One lesson from 2025 was that meaningful institutional change is slower and more complex than one might hope. Ideas such as responsible management education, humanistic leadership, sustainability, and peace are morally compelling, but they do not become institutional realities simply because they are good ideas.
They require patience, shared ownership, coalition-building, administrative capacity, and humility. People must understand the purpose of change, not merely receive instructions about it.
That experience reminded me that leadership is not only about vision. It is also about listening, timing, trust, and persistence. It taught me once again that institutions change through relationships as much as through plans.
Are there any personal or professional goals you feel comfortable sharing for 2026?
In 2026, I hope to serve more meaningfully as Dean of the Kyung Hee University School of Management and to help strengthen its mission of responsible, human-centered, and globally engaged management education.
I also hope to contribute to the work of PRME as a member of the Advisory Board, especially by helping expand engagement in Asia and by advancing the idea that business education can contribute to peace, sustainability, and human flourishing.
Another goal is to continue developing the theme of business as vocation. I believe that business education should help students see their careers not only as paths to personal success, but as ways of contributing to human dignity and the common good.
Personally, I hope to remain faithful to the deeper calling that has shaped my life: to connect education, work, business, and peace in a more humane way.
When you imagine the final moments of your life, what kind of news would you most hope to hear, and why?
I would hope to hear that the next generation has chosen dignity over domination, cooperation over hatred, and peace over fear.
I would also hope to know that my students, colleagues, family, and community are continuing the work of creating a more humane and peaceful world. If some small part of my teaching, scholarship, or leadership has helped others believe that business and education can serve human dignity and peace, I would be deeply grateful.
In the end, I do not think a meaningful life is measured solely by personal achievements. It is measured by whether one has helped others live with greater hope, responsibility, and humanity.