Crisis and Recovery: The Relevance of the Path to Emergence of East Asian Capitalism

The East Asian economic crisis of 1997 and the rapid recovery by 1999 has become a widely debated topic among researchers; its analysis primarily based on economic theories of financial crises and their origins. This paper sets out to show how analyses based on an institutional and organizational perspective can add insight to the problem. This view is consistent with the decades of success that occurred prior to the crisis. It is dependent on an analysis of capitalism and its associated system of governance that has evolved in East Asia. This paper has two purposes. First, to provide an explanatory analysis of the East Asian success story from the sixties to 1997; the crisis of 1997 to 1999; and the subsequent recovery. Second, to provide an interdisciplinary and management approach to analyzing the interaction between national and institutional organizations that are developing internationally, autonomous of the control of any nation state, and their impact, viability and sustainability as a result of globalization.