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Research Article

A qualitative Study on Work-Family Interface at a Women’s Hospital in Korea

Jeeyoung Lee,김효선/Hyosun Kim

Seoul National University

Published: January 2014 · Vol. 18, No. 3 · pp. 27-56
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Abstract

In order to investigate how work interacts with family in the Korean organizational context, this study conducted a qualitative study regarding three main topics of work- family issues: work-family conflict, work-family facilitation and work-family boundary management. Based on the 25 interviews at S women hospital, we confirmed previous studies, yet found some unique issues that reflect Korean context. Similar to the findings of previous studies, the results didn’t show the behavior-based conflict but discover time-based conflict and strain- based conflict. In particular, there are more work-to-family conflicts when the people have strong career aspiration. In the case of work-family positive interaction, Korean women who have jobs feel happy because they can maintain proper distance with their children and parents-in-law. Moreover, participants reported that people can have different perspectives and expand their viewpoint about human being by talking with their family. This was especially prominent among people who were in the leadership role. Finally, this study revealed both segregation strategy and integration strategy. On the one hand, some people pursued long-distance segragation strategy which had long term effect in family life. On the other hand, some pursued integration strategy, in which success depended on supporting system and relevant policy initiatives in the future. These results have meaningful implications to show new research hypothesis which could be tested in Korea organization setting.
Keywords: 일-가정 상호작용일-가정 갈등일-가정 촉진일-가정 경계관리한국적 맥락질적 연구