A Comparative Study of Korean and Japanese Employees’ Collectivism and Its Influence on Volunteerism Mediated by Empathy

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is analyze collectivistic tendencies and its influence on volunteerism with empathy as a mediating variable of multinational employees of Korea and Japan. Design/Methodology/Approach - Online self-administered surveys were distributed to multinational enterprise employees in both Seoul, Korea and Tokyo, Japan. Out of 300 distributed surveys, 270 usable surveys were collected and statistical analysis performed to identify collectivism influencing volunteerism with empathy mediation of both Korean and Japanese employees. Findings - Empirical evidence demonstrated that employees exhibiting higher collectivism also exhibited higher volunteerism behaviors in both Korea and Japan. Findings indicate Koreans demonstrated higher collectivism influence on volunteerism than the Japanese. Also, empathy’s mediation was validated for both Korean and Japanese employees between collectivism and volunteerism. Research Implications - Research findings indicate collectivism influenced Korean employees more than Japanese employees, verifying earlier research finding Korea displaying a greater collectivism dimension than Japan. Also, mediation of empathy was validated in both Korean and Japanese employees. Future research should expand to other cultural dimensions in assessing pro-social or performance related constructs at wider demographics and industries to broaden the applicability of the findings.