Author: Jo H. Kim, Ph.D.

This article presents Korean American women workers' experiences of globalization in the workplace. By examining the gendered work practices in Korean transnational corporations (TNCs) in the United States and the women's responses to them, it highlights the specific features of the workplace that inform practice and identity in particular ways. Because the globalizing workplace includes a division of labor that is defined by ethnicity and gender, the women workers in Korean TNCs cognitively construct gendered practices through ethnicity. Moreover, they use their own ethnicity to explain their responses to the gendered practices. This ethnic construction of behaviors justifies discriminatory organizational practices and perpetuates gender stratification in the workplace. Because work and identity are central feature of modern life, this study enhances our understanding of the globalization process and how it intersects with the specific features of the workplace to configure many dimensions of identity.

Project: Experiencing Globalization: The Construction of Gender and Ethnicity in the TNC Workplace

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