Globalization of Labor : A Comparative Study on the Labor Relations and Social Adjustment of Foreign Workers in Korean Overseas and Domestic Corporate Enterprises

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study explores labor relations and social adjustment problems of local workers employed in overseas Korean corporate enterprises in comparison to the problems of immigrant workers in domestic enterprises. Data for the study was drawn from a series of surveys conducted in 59 overseas Korean companies in China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia and in 189 domestic companies employing migrant workers from the four Asian countries. Major findings from the study are as follows. First, overseas companies are more likely to face culture-related problems such as differences in custom and language barriers, rather than labor-related ones such as wage and working hour disputes. Second, overseas managers are not only more authoritarian but also more paternalistic than their domestic counterparts. In this regard it was also found that in the overseas companies managers evaluate themselves as being more authoritarian than their workers tend to rate them, but in the domestic companies the reverse is the case. These attitudes vary with their host countries or their workers' nationalities, indicating that the so-called "Korean style of management" is not a fixed one but varies with the workers' nationalities as they try to make cultural adjustments. Third, local workers in overseas Korean companies tend to be more satisfied with their labor conditions and jobs than are the migrant workers. Again we found that the extent of satisfaction varies from one ethnic group to another. Most Filipinos, both local workers and migrant workers, tend to be either satisfied or dissatisfied, while most Vietnamese are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. Responses of other ethnic groups are in between the two extremes. Finally, we found that the Korean-Chinese feel closest to Koreans, followed by the Han-Chinese. However, both are more likely to feel discrimination by Koreans, due to the difference between their expected relationship and the actual one with Koreans.