Case Study : South Korea 's Society

Cultures around the world are divide by their distinctive characteristic of people, and how people interact within their society. Most cultures are driven by the way their environment has been set for them. Many of cultures have to adapt to the way their environment are due to the conditions that are set for them and the amount of resources that they are provided. The biggest drive for culture are the historical custom. Most countries continue to carry their ancestor custom so that the tradition may stay with them throughout their years, in which making other countries distinctive from one another. One of the particular country that will be discuss in this report is North Korea. In this report, I will be discussing the North Korean culture, with describing their living condition in the country, common issues that they face with on a daily bases, and common threat that they pose on other countries.

Although China’s influence over Korea has waned severely since the dynastic years we find the Confucian system of virtues and behaviors, China’s chief export from that time, still very much alive. Korea highly values the extended family, education, personal discipline and public order. In South Korea Confucian temples continue to be maintained throughout the country. The tenets of Confucianism are seen as antidotes to social ills and therefore education is thought of as a means of building character, not simply of intellectual formation. The values of Confucianism are promulgated throughout Korea in places as diverse as school, the office and the home. Television programs often portray Confucian merits such as filial piety and harmony. However

South Korea and America are two pressing and influential countries in the world, both with an expressible different history back grounds and present day cultural life style. While most of South Korea is notably similar to America in architect and popular culture, there are some huge divergences in our education system such as classroom atmosphere and student conduct, what a prototypical school day looks like and how many hours we study, and our college placement assessments.

The next nation that will be discussed is South Korea, whose legal tradition finds its origins from Japan, but is now becoming more American in nature due to increased globalization. Korea’s legal tradition was first established 4,300 ago when the Gojoseon dynasty created its own statutory law, heavily influenced by Confucianism and China’s legal system (SpringerLink and Yŏn 'guwŏn 2). (note that during the retelling of South Korea’s history, the nation will be referred to as Korea until the point at which it became separated into Northern and Southern territories). Korea maintained this particular legal tradition, and aspects of a uniquely Korean brand of Confucianism, until the 19th century. In 1894, the internally induced Kabo Reforms aimed to modernize the whole of Korea in terms of legal and administrative systems, culture, economy, and more (“Emergence of a Modern Society”). The Kabo Reforms resulted in a legal system that closely resembled Japan’s system, which followed a civil legal tradition that was heavily influenced by Germany. Korea’s transformation towards a Japanese civil law system was further intensified and completed when it became a colony of Japan in 1910. Following the defeat of Japan during World War Two, Korea gained its independence in 1945, only for the southern half of the nation to fall under American occupation until 1948, while the northern half was occupied by Soviet Russia (SpringerLink and Yŏn 'guwŏn 5). Now dubbed as South Korea, the

Thesis Statement: Though South Korea may be a small country, the style of cuisine, community culture, and generosity are just a few uniquenesses that outshine its stature.

Dr. Geert Hofstede created the first four dimensions of culture in the 1970’s after analyzing statistical data from IBM over the course of many years. In the 1990’s he created the fifth dimension after noticing specific cultural differences in Asian countries and their ties to Confucian philosophy. (www.mindtools.com) The five dimensions are as follows: Power/Distance (PD), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), Uncertainty/Avoidance Index (UAI), and Long Term Orientation (LTO). I will only discuss a few of these as they seem more prominent to this case. First, let’s talk about the Power/Distance (PD) dimension as it pertains to Ms. Myers in South Korea.

According to the Trompennaar’s culture theory, North Korea is very consistent with universalism, communitarianism, neutral, diffuse, and achieve kind of human relationships. With such culture of North Korea, it is one of the factors that makes the Koreans stick together and favor on Jack’s side, instead of Ellen’s regardless of her qualification on the job. Unlike U.S. society, which values individuals qualifications of desired skills and personality that is suitable to the job, the Korean society focus

When a business decides to venture internationally into different countries with its products, services, and operations, it is very important that the company gains an understanding of how the culture of the different societies affects the values found in those societies. Geert Hofstede conducted one of the most famous and most used studies on how culture relates to values. Hofstede study enabled him to compare dimensions of culture across 40 countries. He originally isolated four dimensions of what he claimed summarized different cultures — power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, and masculinity versus femininity (Hill, 2013, p.110). To cover aspects of values not discussed in the original paradigm Hofstede has since added two more dimensions — Confucianism or long-term orientation and indulgence versus self-restraint (Hofstede, n.d.). Because of the way Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are given an index score from 0-100, it is easy for a company to get a general comparison between the cultures they are expanding into and the culture they are already in.

South Korea appears in the first quadrant of Figure 2.2 in which states that the country has a culture with relatively larger power distance and lower individualism. South Korea has a relatively large power distance due to the country’s strong emphasis in respecting for one’s elders and superiors. This cultural belief is deeply

By 2010 the model was completed after a final two more dimensions were added, named pragmatism and indulgence. The research carried out was conducted by Michael Minkov, who studied modern World Values Survey data taken from population samples nationally. Author Robert R.McCrae supports Hofstede’s dimensions by believing that they ‘represent a well-validated operationalization of differences between cultures as manifested in dominant value systems’ (McCrae, 2004). However, as studied on the Geert Hofstede website, only 6 dimensions are needed and necessary in defining culture attributes, resulting in pragmatism being dropped because of overlapping of meanings with long-term orientation.

Manners represent an individual by the way they dress, behave, communicate, and their etiquette, while customs refer to the traditional way that a culture is practice individually, or by a group of people. Workers are expected to bow to their seniors when they greet them, and to use only formal language to their seniors, as it is rude to speak informally to someone of higher rank. In Korean businesses, meetings are often held in evenings at a restaurant or bar. Drinking is part of the Korean culture, as Koreans believe that drinking helps to bond colleagues in the company, and an offered drink must never be refused as it is considered to be rude. Along with drinking, Karaoke is a popular activity after meetings. People who attend the meeting are usually expected to sing a solo song.

Parent’s role in South Korea is taking care of their children until they get married. Children usually live with their parents until they are married, even if they are full grown adults. Parents are desperate attempt to give children an educational advantage, and grant them explore to a globalized worldview (in contrast with Korea's strictly homogenous culture and community), children are often sent to boarding schools abroad usually to the U.S., Canada and Australia, and family members strangely separated for many years.

My return to Korea in the summer of 2001 was nothing short of a culture shock. I was in a country I thought I had learned by heart. It was the country I always rooted my identity and pride from. I wasn’t ready for the shock. I

South Korea is a country located in the southern part of Korean peninsula. The population is 48,955,203 people (July 2013 est.) which make South Korea to be the 25th largest country in terms of population despite the relatively small area of the land. This paper will compare two cities in South Korea, Seoul and Busan, in terms of different in culture and how it affects the consumer behavior of the people living in the related cities. But, first of all, let’s see the general culture of people in South Korea:

It is essential to have a clear picture of the Korean culture and its relation with the education. South Korea is a country that emerged from the Korean War with a third of its population homeless. In 1945, only 5 percent of South Koreans had received secondary education. After General Park took power in 1961, the people were exhorted to work hard in order to improve their country. The old generation fought to make South Korea the twentieth most democratic country in the world, and most democratic in Asia, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. The stereotypical Korean parents usually are not satisfied when their children receive lower that and “A” on the tests. Currently, South Korea is a very competitive country; it is essential to win one university place in order to honor their parents and culture. The demand for education in South Korea has overpassed the supply despite the fact that Korean enrollment ratios have been much higher than those of Euro-American countries. “Confucianism puts a premium on education success and the provision of a stable life for most families. This idea inspires people to strive for at least a standard level of