Hi, I’m Hyung-Kun Park (I go by HK). 

I’m a doctoral candidate in Strategic Management at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. Before joining Rice, I have mostly spent my days in Yonsei University, where I received my Master of Science in International Business and Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies. 

Before starting my PhD journey, I worked as a research assistant for several government projects on topics such as multilateral cooperation for standardization and sustainable development, during my time at Yonsei School of Business in South Korea. I also served as an air traffic controller in the Army Aviation Command of the ROK Army as part of my mandatory military service, which was actually quite memorable.

What am I interested?

In daily life, we are bombarded with international news. The G20 summit was held to discuss sustainability, or one country did something to another country. Usually we treat this news like celebrity gossip, something interesting to follow but unrelated to what we are doing right now. This is not true. Global affairs have a significant impact on our daily lives. We just do not always notice it.

Bringing this into the field of business, I am interested in how global affairs shape corporate strategy. Whether managers fully recognize it or not, they are navigating a rapidly shifting landscape, from geopolitical tensions like the US-China trade dispute to cooperative global frameworks like the Sustainable Development Goals. It was not long ago that sustainability reporting was a novelty. Today some firms publish detailed environmental disclosures while others are proactively building factories on American soil. These are not isolated events. They reflect deliberate strategic choices firms make in response to shifting global pressures. Understanding what drives those choices, and what follows from them, is the central concern of my research.

Any research updates?

One of my recent papers was published in the Strategic Management Journal, and I have several more in the pipeline—stay tuned!