N. Hello Gabriel, welcome. Thank you for accepting to give me some of your time to discuss your professional path and international life in South Korea’s capital.
G. Well my pleasure, I have a fairly special situation, so I am glad if anyone is interested in hearing about it.
N. Alright. Should we start with a basic introduction about yourself?
G. Sure. I guess I should start by saying that I was born in France. I did all my studies there all the way until my Business School in Paris. In the last years of my Masters I had the opportunity to study abroad. I chose to go study in Seoul, South Korea because of its total difference compared to France. I didn’t want to stay in the comfort of the European Union or any western culture.
N. Great, but I believe you are still living there, right?
G. Absolutely, this is my 3rd year living in Korea. I completed my Masters while still being abroad, I graduated and found my first job in a Korean company which also has an office in the Silicon Valley. I am quite happy because everything in my life now is so international. It’s a very beneficial situation to be. It transforms a person in so many ways. Good ways.
N. I can easily imagine indeed. This all sounds amazing! As for myself, I am finishing my second year of Master in Social, Institutional and Organizational Psychology in Nantes. I have been carrying research projects for two years now about well-being at work, management and performance. I am currently assisting a hospital in reorganizing their managerial and organizational modes of operation.
Now that I have explained my situation, I would like to ask you if you know what an I.O. Psychologist is?
G. I would guess something like “Internal Organization”? Perhaps someone working directly for companies?
N. Fairly close. In general, an I.O. psychologist is specialized in group interactions, group phenomena, processes that will play a role in these interactions, etc. We will mainly intervene at work with a systemic approach in order to understand the issues of the situations and problems we are asked to deal with.
I.O psychologists can work in several fields, it can be in recruitment, human resources, prevention etc… There are really a lot of possibilities concerning the themes that we can deal with. As I told you it can be recruitment, we are aware of discrimination, judgment bias, personality tests and so on. Like me, we can work on occupational health, management, psychosocial risks and overall quality of life at work, because we have the knowledge and methods necessary to identify and manage burnout situations, stress at work, etc.
Others may specialize in environmental psychology, i.e. acting on pro-environmental behaviors in companies for example, or even acting within associations or structures that seek to motivate people to be eco-responsible.
But as you have understood, we will mainly act on a group or an entire organization. Even if it also happens to us to have individual consultations with people in need. One does not exclude the other, but this is what you can do when you are an I.O. psychologist. Of course, there are many other practices, but I am not going to do my two years of master’s degree in 2 minutes. So, I wanted to know if you have ever met one?
Have you ever met one?
G. I don’t think I ever have, no.
N. Ok, so I found it very interesting to talk with you today about the differences between our two work cultures. And that’s my question :
Have you experienced a culture shock between France and Korea?
G. Oh definitely. Apart from someone who isn’t interested in anything, everyone would feel it to some degree. Everything is different. From the big things, like food, architecture, history…to the small things like politeness, advertisement, pop culture…
I think the thing that shocked me most was the working culture. France is known to be pretty laid back, similar to Australia for example, while Korea is very hardworking, so is Japan.
So, if I have to be a little bit more precise, work related to stress and burnout are something that is none by the Korean government, there are actually, they happen lately many many attempts to reduce this or to tackle this, to address this problem. For example, because the Korean government knows that many companies force employees to stay way much more than what they are supposed to actually working, we are talking later than 10 pm. The government is imposing an automatic shutdown of al the computers in the office and this happens for now for the top major companies. There are many in Korea and there are famous for having very… what we would think as Europeans very disrespectful abusive practice. But it’s a completely different culture and the mindset in the country where I’m living is, your company, and your colleagues are your family. So, most of the time you would giving up a big part of your family life, if not almost all of it, for the company. The company is the entity that is going to provide everything that you need including fun time. There is a practice here that is noun as “회식” (Hwesik) and it’s what we would maybe call “business diner”, but it’s quite different from everything you ever experienced in western countries. The idea is to go with the boss and have party, karaoke sing and drinking pretty heavily. And this is something that it is very common and very integrated in the culture. It’s something that nobody even question that, it’s just the way it is, it’s a cultural fact. So, because of this, let’s say of any kind of private life, and family life, and personal life, personal leisure time specifically, it’s very easy to observe work related to stress and even depression that lead to the higher number of suicides I just express. If I may add one more detail here, which is a little bit more positive, the younger generation is increasingly aware of this problem, because just like me they have been studying in others countries, they go to study in United States, they go to study abroad in Europe, in France, in Germany, in many many places in Australia and they do realize the problem they understand, the roots of the problem and they understand how to coop with it, or to avoid it completely, and they just do not want to work for top companies because they know their life is going to suffer outstandingly and they would rather open small coffees where are there own boss for certain period of time.
N. Interesting. What is the concept of work-related stress and burnouts in your workplace or even in Seoul in general?
G. My office is pretty “westernized” due to its office in the United States. However, I am quite familiar with the overall working culture here. It is very very demanding. Korea is actually known worldwide for having some of the longest working hours on the planet. Sadly, Korea has the highest number of suicides in the world. The pressure from society and the never-ending work hours really lead to such terrible endings. However, these are not issues that are totally being taken care of. Koreans do not fully realize how terrible the situation is.
N. You mentioned some pressures. How would you qualify the practices used by your managers? Directional, participative, with a lot of control, very caring…?
G. Everything here is about respecting the hierarchy. Everything. The respect for the person in power, especially if he is older, is key. Since everyone is working so hard, no one really complains to the managers. They just execute and stay silent. It means that there aren’t many “managerial strategies” since managers usually never ask what is wrong or good in the daily activities. This is the most top-to-bottom approach possible. Additionally, the language contributes to this hierarchy since Korean has 3 different politeness levels in its vocabulary. This reinforces the feeling of vertical power.
N. Have you ever heard of empowerment leadership or empowering managerial practices?
G. Sure! In my studies and also from papers online since this is a very trendy term lately. The idea is to transfer some of the responsibilities and management powers along the chain of operations to facilitate quick response and decision making.
N. That is absolutely correct.
As I was explaining earlier on, I am working on this type of practice in connection with well-being and performance within companies.
Do you feel this kind of need, especially in terms of autonomy, decision-making or recognition?
G. I do. This is necessary today more than ever with most companies working internationally. With time difference, sharing decision powers become necessary. I also believe that bringing different personalities together and sharing powers can only be beneficial as a whole.
N. That is true! Well thank you very much, do you have any questions to ask me?
G. Actually, I have one. What do you think is the best way to change managerial practices? Reward? Punishment? Incentive? Maybe, discussion?
N. I’m going to speak for france because that’s the field i know.
In my opinion, it often depends on a lot of things, but in general at the heart of situations is communication. Very often the communication with the hierarchy is lacking and often it is linked to other things like consideration, recognition of work or of oneself.
In contemporary managerial literature the emphasis is on autonomy, self-control, etc., but often these practices will individualize work groups and therefore make them less cooperative and therefore more vulnerable to stress or suffering. For me, there is no better way to change managerial practices because they are often guided by performance indicators and public policies aimed at performance, but local managers have real power over their teams, and it is up to us to show them that with more communication, recognition, and participation in decision-making, they can renew social ties and solidify solidarity in companies.
This is the end of our interview, thank you very much Gabriel for participating.
G. My pleasure it was great to learn a few things and I think your job will help many in the years to come!
N. Well I certainly work for that! Thank you, have a nice day.