Dr  Nahee Kang - Teaching

PhD supervision: 

I would be interested in supervising PhD research broadly in the following areas:

1. Capitalism in the developing world: The comparative capitalism literature - including the 'varieties of capitalism', 'national business systems', and 'social systems of production and innovation' - emerged as a way of understanding capitalist diversity and change in developed countries. However, when deployed critically to reflect development context - for instance, by drawing on some of the recent works on development such as those by Douglass North and colleagues - the comparative capitalism literature can provide a useful a theoretic lens to explore multiple path-dependent trajectories of capitalist development in the developing world. While I focus on East Asia as an empirical site for exploration and illustration, I would also be interested in supervising research that explores capitalisms in other parts of the developing world. 

2. The study of politics, processes, and outcomes of institutional transplantation: Another strand of my research examines the widespread but contested practice of 'institutional transplantation'. The rediscovery of institutions in the form of new institutional theory has not led to greater sensitivity to distinct national contexts as one might have expected. Rather, it has led to the framing of 'best practices' in terms of Anglo-American institutions, the applicability of which is presumed to transcend national contexts. The serious dangers associated with institutional transplantation has been well highlighted by its critics. However, without sufficient understanding of how certain local contexts influences the processes and outcomes, it is considered to be the only strategy currently available to the international development community, as the practice is believed to be a superior option to simply 'muddling through'. Hence, valuable contribution can be made by examining the processes and outcomes of diffusion of Anglo-American institutions - such as corporate governance and CSR - to developing countries, and its consequences for their capitalist development.

If you are interested in pursuing a PhD degree under my supervision, please contact me with your (1) CV, and (2) research proposal.