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Negotiating and Contesting Confucian Workplace Culture in South Korea

ABSTRACT The South Korean workforce faces conflicting pressures arising from intensified global competition, neoliberal policy reforms and contending cultural norms concerning appropriate workplace behaviours. Demographic, policy and economic changes have destabilised steeply hierarchical norms understood as ‘Confucian’ or ‘traditional’, with calls for flexibility, informality and reduced reciprocal loyalty between employers and employees. Nonetheless, this study suggests that some South Korean firms are attempting to maintain hierarchical practices and strategically deploy traditional cultural norms, many of which are embedded in linguistic practices. Based on intensive observation within three workplaces, we find that firms can sometimes actively construct an alignment between Confucian-based culture and workplace practices that induce significant commitment from employees. Furthermore, practices and expectations anchored in understandings of what is traditional exert a surprising influence in the workplaces we studied. However, many employees wrestle with the contradictions between traditional cultural norms and demands for greater individual autonomy.