"Learning from the First National Expressway Megaproject: Project Execution Capabilities and the Construction Firms in Korea"

As the economic development progresses in Korea in the second half of the 1960s, insufficient and obsolete infrastructure and public utilities such as roads, railroads, power plants, dams, and harbors, power plants stood out. Then, the state decided to construct infrastructure before insufficient and obsolete infrastructure drags down the further economic development of Korea. As the nationalistic protectionist state strived to curtail the foreign FDI to protect domestic industry, it was the state as well as the domestic construction firms with almost zero experience and technology who had to construct those infrastructures.
Therefore, the case of Gyeongbu expressway construction megaproject (1968 – 1970) provides intriguing laboratory for examining the learning process of both the state and the private business as it was the first expressway construction megaproject that held in Korea. The learning process of both actors proceeded in the form of learning-by-doing and trial-and-error. It was the state whom planned and prepared the project from scratch with their task forces and it was the private construction firms whom executed the project, however, neither of them possessed sufficient technology nor knowledge to plan, prepare, and execute the project. Therefore, they had to learn and execute the project simultaneously through trial-and error and learning-by-doing. It is also an interesting case as the leading constructor whom executed almost 30% of whole construction work later became one of the biggest family-controlled diversified business group, Hyundai group and the founder of Hyundai group. This was possible as Hyundai Construction had been accumulated their capability to learn and assimilate the foreign technology through their repetitive participation on foreign technology acquisition transactions from 1950s.