Summary
We explored what the slang word ‘kkondae’ says about the organizational culture of Korean companies. From the perspective of organizational culture symbolism, which holds that language is a product reflecting a group’s culture, we sought to interpret the contexts in which the word is used in terms of dimensions of organizational culture.
We first reviewed Korean research on organizational culture diachronically and summarized the continuing tensions between vertical and horizontal, collectivism and individualism, and paternalism and performance orientation. We then applied text mining methods, including structural topic modeling, to 126,811 reviews collected from the company review site Jobplanet.
Kkondae appeared together with words that refer to hierarchy and power structures, and tended to be accompanied by negative emotion. It was used to refer to a person or group that puts rank and authority first and does not acknowledge individual differences, and it was also often used together with the word ‘young’, so it did not mean only older people. People who perceived kkondae and kkondae culture rated the organizational culture of their own company more negatively, to a statistically significant degree.
Citation
김성준, 이중학, 채충일 (2021). 꼰대, 한국기업 조직문화 차원의 탐구. 조직과 인사관리연구, 45(2), 1–35. https://doi.org/10.36459/jom.2021.45.2.1
Indexed in: KCI
Citation
@online{2021,
author = {},
title = {꼰대, {한국기업} {조직문화} {차원의} {탐구}},
date = {2021-05-31},
url = {https://chadchae.github.io/posts_publication/2021-05-31-kkondae-organizational-culture-korean-companies/kkondae-organizational-culture-korean-companies.html},
langid = {en}
}