Too often, my Polish colleagues have asked me why Koreans stay longer after work. Most people, it seems to me, have a same question why we do so and sometimes, I am sensing that they treat us like a "Workaholic" or a pretender to work hard.
This is, also, a frequent question that I have been asked when I was in US. Eventually, it is becoming a universal question most people have. Actually, I asked myself the same question when I joined Daewoo 1987 after university. Yes, indeed, Koreans really are hard workers, more precisely we work longer hours. The typical example is Chairman Kim of Daewoo group and Mr. Yoo of DMP, as you would expect.
Are Koreans financially motivated to work longer?
However, many researches tell Korean people are motivated not by money but by the sense of belongings in a successful team with shared goals and values. (Such as Daewoo in Korea) Conversely, the study made by Mr. R. Bruce Money, assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, U.S., showed that Koreans are more willing to trade off salary for a congenial company culture in which shared values and team work are central. The correlation between how closely an individual's value matched his employer's and how satisfied he felt was 25 times stronger for the Koreans than for the Americans. Thus 'money motivates' does not work to the Koreans.
Then, you may ask, " What motivates Korean to work other than financial reward?" There are several reasons behind that. More than anything else, the right answer for that is we must work hard. Korea is mountainous with limited natural resources. 70% of Korean peninsular is covered by mountains, which we can not afford to exploit for economic use. Worst of all, we have almost 40 thousand populations in a small area, which is as small as one third of Poland. However, this disadvantage has made motivating to work. To feed the family, my grand parents had to work from the dawn to sunset in the farm. Often Chairman Kim says that the present is the one we borrowed from our children, not inherited from the parents. Thus, we should feel obligated to make better and richer for them to live. Maybe this short statement tells everything about the motivation shared among us. Exactly like Poland, Korea has been a connecting pin between two powers-Japan and China. Whenever one power starts to break the peace in the Far East, we have been frequently forced into difficult situation. We have nothing but to make Korea big power enough to stand alone.
There is an equation that explains the development process of a particular country. (If you were economy major, it would be easy to understand) That is, there are three kinds of resources that a country put to the production, Capital (K), and Labor (L) and Technology (T). However, we often find that 1K+1L+1T are not always same with 1Q. The examples can be found in Microsoft's case. They may put 0.1K+0.001L+2T, but output (Q) would amount to 100Q sometimes to 1000Q. Think about the "Window 95". The residual between inputs and outputs can be explained as a "knowledge"-as Peter Drucker put it in his article "Knowledge Worker". Looking back on our reality, we have a quite a deal of suspicion that we have the "Knowledge". Definitely, we don't have the "Residual" or the "Knowledge". Our alternative was to increase the quantities of input. As a resource-scarce country, we couldn't increase capital as much as we wanted. We could increase technology by importing it from advanced country such as Japan, German or US, unfortunately, not to the level of our satisfaction. Because those countries did not want to lose the profitable market, we were restricted to access certain advanced technology. The last but desperate way was nothing but to increase the inputs of labor (L).
There is a global example from U.S. regarding the length of work, too. My academic interest was, while in US for my MBA at company sponsorship, entrepreneurship. Thus, I visited a lot of companies who had just started their own business or larger companies which had developed through the initial stage, yet not the largest company. Strikingly, the average work hour starts usually from 7:30 in the morning but they too often never stop the work till midnight. The enthusiasm to achieve excellence created the strong commitment toward the work. They are called the "Creative Minority" who actually has made America what it is now. McDonalds or Burger King is a proof. Fast food provides a quick nourishing meal during a busy day. Another proof is the convenient store, which open during 24 hours a day.
I love to make myself busy. Because this is the opportunity to make myself learn more and to accumulate my personal "Knowledge" enough to distinguish myself and make more competitive in my career and the Creative Minority. Even I greatly appreciate family/work balance most Europeans enjoy, however, I have a dream someday my children can enjoy their life in a more pleasant environment and greatly appreciate the time and efforts I put for them. Also, I have a dream someday my country - Korea becomes one of the world's influential powers through national wealth. Finally, I have a dream that someday my generation will be recorded and respected as the diligent that changed the stream of world history into Asia.
That is the right answer why I stay longer at the office.
