UNDERSTANDING WORK PLACE IN KOREA:HISTORY, CULTURE AND ECONOMY

한국경제는 재화와 서비스뿐만 아니라 자본과 인적자원의 이동을 통해 매우 급속하게 글로벌화 되고 있다. 한국 사회에서 증가하고 있는 외국인들을 고려하여 볼 때 이들 외국인들이 한국의 직장 문화와 노사관계를 어떤 방식으로 적절하게 이해하여야 하느냐 하는 것은 매우 중요한 사안이다. 한국의 직장 문화와 노사관계는 한국이 경제발전과 더불어 변화를 겪어 왔으며 이와 더불어 선진국의 기준과 활용 등을 점진적으로 채택하고 있다. 그러나 한국의 직장 문화와 노사관계는 한국만의 고유한 색채를 가지고 있는데 이는 외국사람들의 관점에서 일반적으로 이해하고 있는 사항들과 괴리를 만들어 낼 수 있다. 이런 고유의 사항에 대한 오해는 불필요한 갈등을 유발할 수 있으며 나아가 직장문화에서의 부조화스러운 관계를 형성하는 결과를 초래하기도 한다.

After completing this course, students are expected to (1) understand the route causes of Korean culture, especially that of Korean workplace culture (2) compare and comprehend major differences between students' home culture and Korean culture (3) apply major cultural differences to their workplace environment (4) eventually understand Korean people and Korean society overall

Class will be conducted face-to-face unless otherwise notified. For each topic, background reading materials will be uploaded to help enhance student's understanding of the topic. Along side these background reading materials, each week, depending upon the progress of the topic, new lecture note will be uploaded for student's viewing and reading. In each class, students are encouraged to actively take part in discussions, self-raising questions and answers, and sometimes asked to brainstorm over certain topic before making presentations to their peers. As presented below there will be three major assessment components: assignments, cross-cultural presentation and report writing, and take home essay exams. As for assignments there will be four times short summary of the designated article, as well as a small essay on cultural experience; For each assignments, students will be reminded of what and how to do it. As for cross-cultural presentation and report writing, students will be asked to form a group before start working on the mutually agreeable topic. And then students will be required to make presentation, approximately 15 ~ 20 minutes and submit a group report based on the presentation . The exact team number will be decided by the number of course takers. And more details will be expounded in due course in the class. As for take home essay exams. This type of exam will be conducted twice: mid-term and final exam period, at week 8 and week 16, respectively.

Cross-cultural presentation and report writing is a group-based assessment.

There is no pre-requisite or co-requisite subject for this course but students' proactive willingness to learn about Korea, Korean people and Korean culture.

As per the expected outcomes of the course set out above, students, both international and local, can understand and behave adequately within the Korean cultural context in the society, especially Korea-related workplaces.