Experiencing globalization: Production of ethnicity, gender and identity in Korean transnational corporations in the United States

While scholars have speculated a great deal about impacts of globalization without much empirical evidence. To overcome this shortcoming in the literature, this dissertation examines the globalization workplace, specifically the transnational corporation (TNC), which juxtaposes different ethnic groups and (in)forms ethnic identity and work practices in particular ways. Using ethnography and in-depth interviews in Korean TNCs in the United States, this study examines in fine detail how people participate in and respond to work expectations and practices built around certain identities, and how they reinforce those identities. My findings indicate that, the ethnic diversity in the Korean TNC workforce (Korean national managers and American workers, including co-ethnic Korean Americans) allows people in the workplace to observe different work behaviors and to interpret those behaviors through ethnicity. Based on the perception of “shared culture” with the Korean American workers, Korean managers expect them to have a work ethic similar to their own and to accommodate their demands. They interpret different work behaviors of Korean Americans and categorize them by their immigrant generation: “first-generation,” “1.5-generation,” and “second-generation.” Furthermore, the gendered practices in Korean TNCs are constructed in ethnic terms. Whether they resist or accommodate those biased practices, people account for their own behaviors in ethnic terms. This ethnic construction of behaviors justifies and perpetuates gender stratification in the workplace. Hence, this study emphasizes the significance of the workplace as a distinctive context for the construction of identity. It complicates the current conceptualization of globalization and TNC workplaces: I show that the TNC promotes conflicting tendencies between homogenization and heterogenization , because while it creates a bridge between the “old Korea” and the Korean Americans, it simultaneously promotes the differentiation of “Korean-ness” based on immigrant generation and gender. Moreover, because work and identity are central feature of modern life, this dissertation research advances our understanding of how the globalization process intersects with the specific aspects of the workplace to configure many dimensions of identity.