Employment Relations in South Korea provides readers with an overarching view of Korean employment relations and insight into recent changes, and also to help the general public understand more easily the various phenomena and changes in Korean employment relations.

South Korea is one of the rare countries that has experienced political/industrial democratization and economic development simultaneously in a relatively short period. However, the full story of democratization and development processes displays two faces - positive and negative aspects to the deployment of labour/human resources. This book explains these seemingly contradictory outcomes of Korean employment relations (ER) and human resource management (HRM) based upon a theoretical framework that incorporates logics of environmental constraints and strategies of actors. During three key periods of the previous century (i.e., pre-1987, 1987 - 1997 and post-1997), the book discusses the paradigm shift in both ER and HRM. This much-needed text contains informative details on Korean ER and HRM of past and present, with theoretical and practical views, and of transformations and continuities. The book provides policy implications that will stimulate constructive debates regarding the mutual-gains strategies for policy makers, management and employees.

Earlier editions of this text have become the standard reference for a worldwide readership of practitioners in governments, companies and unions, and students. This revised edition analyzes employment relations in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, Japan and Korea.

This book analyses the role of employment relations in the context of economic development in some of the key Asian economies: China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. In recent years, these Asian economies have become increasingly more open and export-driven, and there is strong interest all over the world in the Asian economic `miracle' among practitioners and scholars alike. Although much has been written on this region, few books have concentrated on the human resource aspects of this growth. The authors build on the basic premise that the initial success of these countries has lain in low wages and suppression of workers' rights. However, they point out that as employment relations evolve enterprises will either pull out due to rising wages, or stay and prosper by adapting to higher wages. Cases are provided to illustrate both of these features. The evidence in the book suggests that unless a synergy is created between firm-level and state-level human resource policies in areas such as skill formation and workers' need for voice, economic growth is unlikely to be sustainable.

The Evolution of Korean Industrial and Employment Relations explores current employment and workplace relations practice in South Korea, tracing their origins to key historical events and giving cultural, politico-economic and global context to the inevitable cultural adaptation in one of Asia’s ‘miraculous’ democracies.

Decent work is the ultimate goal but it has to start off with the existence of employment. There can be no work without employment; there can be no work without jobs. In the circle of things, sound industrial relations remains to be fundamental.

In the era of economic stress and industry restructuring this book discusses the paradigm shift in both ER and HRM. Emphasizing the changing role of the state and labor, the recent erosion of the tradition system and search for a new mode of employment, the book provides policy implications that can stimulate constructive debates regarding the ’mutual-gains’ strategies for policy makers, management, and employees.