Human Resource Development in South Korea

Theory and Cases

Doo Hun Lim, Seung Won Yoon, Daeyeon Cho, Doo Hun Lim, Seung Won Yoon, Daeyeon Cho

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030540654
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030540661
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Winner of the 2020 R. Wayne Pace HRD Book of the Year Award, this edited book covers major trends, notable distinctions, and the challenges and needs for preparing future HRD activities in South Korea. It consists of three major sections: national and social issues of HRD, sector perspectives on HRD, and contemporary issues and trends. To cover contemporary trends and future issues, authors examine topics in diverse areas, such as the application of data analytics for HRD, action learning trends, and psychological and work climate issues affecting performance. Through theory and cases, this book will show how HRD can be successful at the organizational, industrial, and societal levels as well as the future needs required to further advance HRD in the nation.

Part INational and Social Issues of HRD

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

D. H. Lim et al. (eds.)Human Resource Development in South Koreahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54066-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Themes and Trends of HRD Research in the South Korean

Doo Hun Lim¹ , Seung Won Yoon² and Daeyeon Cho³

(1)

University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

(2)

Texas A&M University-Commerce, Commerce, TX, USA

(3)

Korea University, Seoul, South Korea

Doo Hun Lim (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Daeyeon Cho

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Introduction

A key issue for many countries is building up the human and social capital of the nation and developing change agencies that will undertake societal human resource development (HRD) initiatives to overcome workforce challenges. This research theme is critical as more organizations and countries attempt to increase their competitiveness to survive in today’s ever-changing global business environment (Farinha, Nunes, Ferreira, & Fernandes, 2018; Florida, 2006). To be competitive, governmental agencies in many countries have established supportive national policies to increase nationwide manpower and human resource potential. As South Korea transitions from a developing to developed country, it has been an exemplar nation that continuously improves its HRD practices and national-level HRD policies.

Like many Asian countries, South Korea has been significantly influenced by Confucianism and Buddhism (Lee, 2009), but especially over the last four decades, it has also adopted traditions from western cultures with Christianity traditions. As such, the societal and spiritual color of South Korea is mixed between that of the East and the West. This intertwined cultural ethos has infiltrated many organizational and workplace cultures and employees’ work ethic. It has also influenced HRD norms and practices. This history of the national and organizational environment has formed the current landscape of HRD systems and practices of South Korean organizations. The country’s rapid economic advancement and global reach of pop arts and culture has also continued to draw global interest as South Korean organizations develop human resources.

The contemporary development of HRD theories and practices in South Korea started in the 1990s (Lee, Chang, & Kim, 2011), which coincided with the nation’s first economic crisis and rapid organizational transformation, followed by globalization of many private-sector firms. Simultaneously, the development of national policies of HRD has been strategically pursued to meet the diverse societal, national, and organizational human performance needs, which has spurred the growth of HRD research and practice in South Korea (Oh, Ryu, & Choi, 2013).

In understanding HRD in South Korea, as one of the fastest growing countries economically in the world, we believe readers of this edited book will benefit from the specific and exemplary uses of HRD policies, theories, interventions, and cases. More specifically, some of the book chapters address topical agendas focusing on the roles of national HRD and its interconnectedness with local- and organizational-level HRD policies and practices. To cover contemporary trends and future issues, the authors present topics in diverse areas, such as the application of data analytics for HRD, action learning trends, and psychological and work climate issues affecting performance. Chapters also cover critical topics such as women leadership and North Korean defectors that have gained considerable attention from diverse audiences domestically and internationally.

HRD graduate students, international and cross-cultural HRD scholars, and practitioners will have access to rich cases of how HRD can be successful at the organization, industry, and societal levels. The South Korean government has played a major role in starting and guiding HRD investment through policies and partnerships. For example, the aging workforce in South Korea has had a significant impact on HRD policy development at the national and local levels and also for private-sector HRD practices, in general. After covering these national and social topics, the next section shows how HRD has been practiced in manufacturing, corporate HRD functions, and government and industry collaborations. The last section covers contemporary issues, challenges, and future needs to further advance HRD in the nation.

Major Themes of HRD in South Korea

This edited book consists of 14 chapters in three major sections: national and social issues of HRD, sector perspectives on HRD, and contemporary issues and trends. This edited book represents the collaborating authors’ diverse expertise and presents up-to-date perspectives on the current state of HRD issues, topics, and trends in the South Korean context. The following sections provide abbreviated descriptions of the fourteen chapters and the implications for research and practice.

HRD Research Trends in South Korea

The titles in this book demonstrate the variety of topics illustrating the broad scope, contexts, and interdisciplinary nature of HRD. The topics address HRD issues and examples in South Korea in terms of national HRD, the aging workforce, HRD in small to medium size enterprises (SMEs), development of North Korean defectors, authentic leadership and agility, corporate universities, government and private sector collaboration, HR/people analytics, women leaders’ voices, action learning, positive organizational behaviors, biased judgment, and more importantly, how lessons learned can apply in other settings or in the future. The last chapter also describes the most recent landscape of HRD research in the country capturing core HRD research areas, key scholars, and their connections and collaboration. The authors were asked to share how their topics illustrate the current state of HRD and what is necessary for future applications. Thus, the chapters are a compilation that include both insights and foresights of major achievements in the field capturing both the past and present.

South Korea is truly a remarkable country to study HRD practice and research. In terms of practice, people from outside South Korea recognize that continuous investment in people has been the single most important reason for South Korea’s rapid economic success and leading global market position in various sectors. It started with industrial manufacturing in the 1970s moving from electronics, automobiles, and information technology in the 1990’s to the most recent increase in the global popularity of South Korean culture called the Korean Wave including K-drama and K-pop. These trends have also brought about rapid changes and complexity in organizational management and HR systems as well as social norms. However, the landscape of HRD research seems to be less well-known. As an academic discipline, South Korea is somewhat unique in that the number of academic HRD programs at universities and the number of journal publications have continuously grown. The number of HRD academic programs and curricula in South Korea is unique compared to other countries (Lim & Cho, 2015), and South Korean HRD scholars in the U.S. constitute the largest ethnic scholar group representing an impressive 30% of all peer-refereed sessions at the annual Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) conference in the Americas. These statistics tell us that whether as a leading guide or practice, research has been side-by-side with HRD practices in South Korea to validate the investment and improvement of HRD. Given this backdrop, by including the broad scope of HRD work and the need to capture the best take-aways from this edited book, our goal is to capture the important work of core agencies to make HRD work impactful and meaningful at various levels.

Government as a Central Player and Partner of the HRD Ecosystem

Our discussion on the role of government in HRD is not meant to claim its universal importance. Every country is different in terms of gubernatorial structure and operation. Instead, we highlight the HRD issues within the public domain that are above and beyond the control of any single organization or institution, let alone individuals. It is also important to recognize that the birth of HRD as a legitimate field of practice in South Korea came from the government’s creation of economic development policies to invest in industrial manufacturing and provide training programs to increase the number of skilled managers and employees (Yoon, Lim, & Cho, 2015).

The first two sections in this book present numerous examples of laws, policies, and assistance programs the South Korean government has created and implemented. The distinctive contributions to the field include identifying national and societal priorities (e.g., increasing access to lifelong and on-demand learning in view of the growing service industry, Chapter 2), institutionalizing support services for senior workers (Chapter 3) and North Korean defectors (Chapter 5), and assisting SMEs with training and subsidy programs (Chapter 4) and internationalization efforts (Chapter 8). These initiatives have been made possible because of concrete governmental policies and partnerships.

Core Functions and Roles: Emphasis on Interventions and Impacts

The chapters also highlight how core functions and activities of HRD work. The focus is on improving system performance through learning and the development of people, leading to positive and tangible changes for individuals, organizations, and society. For instance, the three action learning cases in Chapter 12 illustrate how an approach that integrates authentic project actions with team-level learning could effectively address the goal of participating members in higher education, industry, and citizenship education settings. Chapter 8 illustrates how individual-focused work-and-learning interventions sponsored by multiple entities have addressed the talent shortage of SMEs. HRD work that exemplifies why individual initiatives and transformation are also critical. For instance, leaders’ authenticity is the driving force for establishing workplace agility and change-oriented behaviors (Chapter 6). Diversity and inclusion are also topics of growing interest worldwide. Scholars and visionary leaders recognize that these topics are of strategic importance to draw talent and compete based on deeper principles of societal causes and value alignment. In addition to the work about the government’s efforts to help North Korean defectors, Chapter 10 shares how gender equality and work-family life balance could improve through woman leaders’ conscious resistance to social norms that favor men in the workplace. These efforts call for the support of supervising leaders and an organizational culture with supportive policies.

The authors...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. National and Social Issues of HRD
• Part II. Sector Perspectives
• Part III. Contemporary Issues and Trends
• Correction to: Human Resource Development in South Korea
• Back Matter