Having spent many of my school years in the 1990s overseas, one of the proudest moments as a South Korean was to say that Hyundai was a South Korean brand.

While most of my classmates could hardly distinguish between North and South Korea, they nodded in recognition as I explained it was the country of origin of the shiny Sonata sedan.

The influence and correlation between the images of a nation and a corporate brand have been extensively researched and analyzed since the 1960s.

In South Korea, the image of Samsung, Hyundai and other globally renowned homegrown brands have been cherished, espoused and protected by citizens. To defend the brand of a Korean company has always been considered patriotic.

Companies have often relied on such sentiment to survive controversies, push for policies that favor them and divert attention from their mistakes.

As said by professor Israel D. Nebenzahl, author of “National image and competitive advantage,” it little matters whether the country’s image affected consumers’ purchasing intentions or whether a collection of experiences shape the consumers’ image of a country. They go hand in hand.

And to many South Koreans, the conglomerates have played perhaps the biggest role in enhancing the country’s global image with their top-notch products and technologies. Patriotic marketing has thus been widely adopted by companies here.

Korean consumers’ strong sense of loyalty toward products designed by and made in Korea has also been described as ethnocentrism.

A case in point would be Samsung Electronics, which saw unfaltering loyalty at home despite the debacle involving its Galaxy Note 7 this summer.

But behind such loyalty toward Korean brands also lies resentment toward chaebol. The conglomerates are praised for their role in reviving the war-torn country and making it the world’s 11th-largest economy, but they are also condemned for the privilege and power they have enjoyed at the expense of smaller businesses and irregular workers. Some of them are criticized for bending the rules to ensure hereditary successions of managerial power through circular shareholdings and treasury stocks.

Nonetheless, Koreans have largely remained tolerant. As a country that has an 84.8 percent ratio of trade to GDP, how its conglomerates do overseas is imperative.

This loyalty toward local brands met an unlikely challenge recently, in the form of a presidential scandal.

Caught in the web of alleged influence-peddling and suspected bribery involving top presidential aides, ministries and state-run projects, were the nation’s top conglomerates. They are alleged to have been solicited by President Park Geun-hye to donate billions of won to shady foundations run by her friend.

A total of eight conglomerate heads were questioned by the prosecution, and nine chaebol owners are expected to be called in for questioning by the National Assembly next week.

Now many patriotic consumers are concerned about the damage to Korea’s corporate image.

As the prosecutorial probe is currently ongoing, some say the parliamentary hearings are unnecessary and inappropriate. After the parliamentary hearing, the conglomerate heads are also likely to be subject to further investigation by an independent counsel.

All except LG face allegations of providing funds in return for favors, although the businesses deny the suspicions, saying they are based on speculation and hearsay.

Officials of the involved businesses say normal operations have been made impossible. They say their investment plans have been sidelined as their high-ranking personnel are preoccupied in preparing for officials’ questions.

The nation’s image, already tainted by the alleged shamanistic influence of the president’s friend, could further deteriorate as the crisis drags on.

As the global trend changes toward protectionism by major economies, saving the country’s major exporters from embarrassment could be important.

However, at a time of crisis, it is all the more crucial to concentrate on the fundamentals.

Lining up the bigwigs, some of them as old as 78, at the Assembly for a session that is most likely to degenerate into political game-playing, is certainly going to be embarrassing.

But one should remember what has led to this embarrassing turn of events, and to the fact that all of the country’s top conglomerates have been implicated in this ludicrous scandal.

A brand image, be it of a country or a company, cannot be controlled by force, but rather reinforced by the accumulation of facts and experiences.

Sweeping the issue under the rug for the sake of short-term face-saving would ultimately cost the brand dearly.

The current political crisis is rightly blamed on the media for turning a blind eye to Park’s questionable deeds in the past. Glossing over any abnormal relations between conglomerates and administrations would come to haunt the country as a whole.

The companies could be perceived as victims to outlandish political pressure.

But Korea’s corporate brands go beyond any one administration and transcend the nation’s borders. They go beyond the current political slapstick that is mostly aimed for the domestic audience.

More important is how we step forward from here. Perhaps this time, we can really use it as an opportunity to address the collusive relations between corporations and the government, and look for ways to make them more transparent.

It may be the time to discuss how to prepare legal tools to manage and control these relations in a country where lobbying is rampant yet illegal. Discussions on the subject, which flare up with every high-profile influence-peddling scandal, have often dissolved into nothing.

This could be a key moment for conglomerates to prove that they deserve their global status, by going beyond casting themselves as victims and instead taking the initiative to reform things. At the very least, their patriotic consumers at home deserve such a gesture.

By Lee Joo-hee(jhl@heraldcorp.com)

Lee Joo-hee is the business editor of The Korea Herald. She can be reached at jhl@heraldcorp.com. – Ed.