Thoughts on Korean Business by Don Southerton

  We all enjoy it when our work is recognized and cited.     This week, in The Korea Times, scholar and professor Bernard Rowan cited my article  Smart Work and COVID-19—Transforming the Workplace in South Korea .  In 2020 amid the Pandemic, I had asked the question- if whether remote and smart work might become a permanent alternative in Korea where management liked to see their teams in the office, at their desks and with heads down.    Many thanks Bernard. Your recent opinion piece is well researched and based on a number of new surveys shows remote work has gained considerable in-roads and as you note has had an impact on life-work balance. And, this is well beyond South Korea and the U.S.   OPINION Progress and remote work    By Bernard Rowan ( Ro Wan)    May 18, 2021   COVID-19 as a global pandemic continues. India is in its death grip. Many other nations, like Brazil, have serious challenges. Other countries sa...

As shared in one of my books  Korea Perspective  there is an interconnectedness in the Korea workplace. In particular, complex relationships abound .   This is true whether operations are in South Korea, Germany, Brazil, India, or the Americas.  Directives and requests originating in Korea headquarters radiate to global operations.  In turn, inputs from local working teams, Korean and western, make their way back to Korea impacting decisions by leadership. Relationships also play a strong part in this process. What may appear one-sided and perhaps top-down may actually be the result of months of study, benchmarking, and research, as well as internal discussions and Korean peer input.  For reasons unclear to local overseas teams, projects can stall, while others re-boot. Amid the disruptive business conditions, how overseas teams, Korean and Western, work together matters. We all recognize that within divergent cultures and mindsets it requires both sides to...