How to do business successfully in Korea can be summarized in the following set of general guidelines that, if followed, will greatly reduce the obstacles foreigners have to overcome.

1. Spend a substantial amount of time and effort researching the market for the product or service you propose to introduce into Korea, including the legal aspects, the distribution and retailing systems, the competition, and any special cultural barriers that might exist.
2. Structure your strategy and tactics in such a manner that you can deal with the purely emotional and subjective factors that play such an important role in all business relationships in Korea. This should include retaining a "cultural consultant" with business experience to advise you every step of the way, and possibly using other well-qualified individuals as document preparers, professional negotiators, facilitators, and image makers. Deliberately cultivate a network of personal friendships in fields ranging from academia and science to sprots.
3. Keep in mind that logic and common sense do not always prevail in Korea and are often a serious handicap, and that a blatantly aggressive approach is almost certain to fail. Patience, calm perseverance, and the use of tried and proven Korean techniques are essential.
4. Give the development of close personal relationships with your potential partners, customers, and business associates the highest possible priority. This means meeting with them many times in both business and social settings, with special emphasis on the latter. The most commonly used medium for developing and nurturing personal relationships is eating and drinking together (followed now by golf and other recreational pursuits), and for this to be effective it must be done often and with gusto. Time and money for this kind of entertaining is an important part of doing business in Korea.
5. First contacts should always be made through introductions. There is no acceptable excuse for calling on a Korean company cold. If you do not already know someone in the company who can arrange an entree for you, it is important that you identify and go through an outside contact - someone you can get to who has a relationship with the company concerned. This outside contact may be a banker, a supplier, a customer, a family member, or a classmate.
6. Make sure you are well supplied with name-cards - bilingual if at all possible - and that you present them in a formal or at least semiformal manner. The possession and use of name-cards is a vital part of Korean etiquette and ethics, and it should not be treated casually. After you are introduced to new people at meetings, place their name-cards on the table in front of you during the meeting, in order in which people are sitting, so you can refer to them correctly.
7. If you do not speak Korean or have a qualified interpreter with you, take special pains to make sure you are communicating effectively with whomever you meet. Many Koreans can speak English much better than they can understand it, giving the misleading impression that they are fairly fluent. Unless the individual's fluency is obvious, it is always wise to speak slowly and carefully, in simple terms, and to summarize key points in writing follwoing meetings.
8. In negotiating or dealing with Koreans in any way, keep in mind that they are especially sensitive about their own personal face and image, about their company, and about Korea in general. Go out of your way to avoid creating or adding to any negative feelings. Keep the meetings friendly and positive even if you cannot come to an agreement. Remember that kibun (mood/feelings) takes precedence over everything else.
9. Keeop in mind that to Koreans a written contract is not regarded as something concrete. To them it is only a sign that you have agreed to do business with each other, and that the details of the relationship will be worked out later on an ongoing basis, as circumstances warrant. Because of this, establishing and nurturing personal relationships with key individuals in companies, on all levels, is essential. The personal nature of contractual relationships with Korean companies makes it essential that contracts be signed by top executives as a significant display of the status and importance of the relationship to the foreign company.
10. Be aware at all times that dealing successfully with Koreans - whether employees, suppliers, customers, or government agencies - is generally a matter of diplomacy first. The personal factors that are important to Koreans must take precedence over purely business considerations.

Excerpted from Korean Etiquette and Ethics in Business, by Boye Lafayette De Mente Excerpted from Korean Etiquette and Ethics in Business, by Boye Lafayette De Mente Kuala Lumpur Malaysia at 4:50 PM