A Study of Personnel Conflict between Native English Teachers and Korean Management

The purpose of this paper is to successfully define the personnel management problems that are present between Korean managers and western workers. Due to the increasing immigration of western workers to Korea for business, this paper attempts to clearly define the underlying cultural factors that cause the differing expectations and behaviors of both the managers and employees. The identification of cultural aspects needed to provide a breakdown were based upon Geert Hofstede’s Five Dimensions Model that identifies the main areas of cultural identity into five categories: power dominance, individualist vs. collectivist, masculine vs. feminine, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation. By using this model to aid the framework of the study, a survey was constructed to (1) identify personnel conflict problems present in the workplace, and (2) to test whether these problems are caused by an authoritarian managerial style and/or poor communication. The target group identified for this survey was English teachers from western countries currently working in Korea. Each participant was asked to give an in-depth description of their working environment, manager, self description, and personal accounts of workplace conflict.