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The argument here is direct, if tentative. Thus, most available evaluative studies agree that OD applications, globally, have substantial success rates, but this seems ironic in light of the common domination of culturally relativistic views. Many observers urge the culture-boundedness of planned change which implies low OD success rates. This paper is one in a projected series of qualitative tests about whether the irony is only apparent. That is, this series proposes to test for the congruence of the basic OD normative framework with various cultural patterns that can be encountered in the global analysis of today’s organizations. A high degree of fit between the OD Work Ethic and more or less discrete ideational frameworks will help dissolve the apparent irony.

Here, the specific task involves testing the congruence of the “Confucian Work Ethic” with an OD normative framework. The latter may be viewed as the “target” against which the fit of the Confucian Work Ethic is tested in a qualitative sense. High success rates are reported for OD applications in Confucian settings, especially in Korea where Confucian ideas have a substantial prominence. Here, Confucian comparisons with the OD Ethic imply a “good fit,” which is consistent with the similarly high success rates in Korea as well as elsewhere.

While the origin of Korean Industrial Relations goes back 150 years when the country opened its seaports to foreign countries, it didn’t emerge as a field of study until 1950s when academics began to write books and papers on the Korean labor movement, labor laws, and labor economics. In this paper, we sketch this history and describe important events and people that contributed to the development of industrial relations in Korea. Korean industrial relations in the early 20th century were significantly distorted by the 35-year-Japanese colonial rule (1910–1945). After regaining its independence, the U.S. backed, growth-oriented, military-based, authoritarian Korean government followed suit and consistently suppressed organized labor until 1987. Finally, the 1987 Great Labor Offensive allowed the labor movement to flourish in a democratized society. Three groups were especially influential in the field of industrial relations in the early 1960s: labor activists, religious leaders, and university faculty. Since then, numerous scholars have published books and papers on Korean industrial relations, whose perspectives, goals, and processes are still being debated and argued. The Korean Industrial Relations Association (KIRA) was formed on March 25, 1990 and many other academic and practitioner associations have also come into being since then. The future of industrial relations as a field of study in Korea does not seem bright, however. Issues regarding organized labor are losing attention because of a steadily shrinking unionization rate, changing societal attitude toward labor unions, and the enactment of new and improved laws and regulations regarding employment relationships more broadly. Thus, we suggest that emerging issues such as contingent workers, works councils and tripartite partnership, conflict management, and human rights will be addressed by the field of industrial relations in Korea only if this field breaks with its traditional focus on union and union–management relations.

This chapter aims to build a systematization of the current theoretical and empirical academic contributions on smart working (SW) in the organization studies domain and to examine which are the main paths that researchers are concerning themselves with, with specific attention being paid to the new meaning that the work itself has acquired in the model proposed by SW. Particular consideration is devoted to an analysis of the characteristics of the present debate on this construct and the meaning of SW, identifying two different – and contrasting – approaches: one considers it as a totally new concept; the other is notable for its continuity with previous arrangements such as telework. Further, some relevant concepts, strictly related to that of SW in working environments are considered. In the last part of the chapter, some key points for further research are proposed to create stimuli for discussion in the community of organization studies and HRM scholars and among practitioners, given from the perspective of deepening the change in progress, the relevance for which there is general consensus.

Ulf Bengtsson works for Motorola Inc. as an Organization Effectiveness consultant. In this role he works in the area of change acceleration, organization design, and other strategic OD initiatives. His undergraduate degree is in Organizational Communication from Cleveland State University and he earned a Masters in Management and Organizational Behavior (concentration in OD) from Benedictine University. He has done award-winning papers and presentations and has numerous publications on topics including organizational behavior, organization development, and appreciative inquiry. A Swedish citizen, he now resides in Chicago. Ulf can be reached at: Ulfl@motorola.com.Allen C. Bluedorn (Ph.D. in sociology, University of Iowa) is the Emma S. Hibbs Distinguished Professor and the Chair of the Department of Management at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has taught and studied management and the organization sciences, first at the Pennsylvania State University, then for the last 23 years at the University of Missouri-Columbia. These efforts have produced seven major teaching awards, over 30 articles and chapters, and his recently published book, The Human Organization of Time (Stanford University Press, 2002). He has served as president of the Midwest Academy of Management, as a member of the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society’s board of directors, as a representative-at-large to the Academy of Management’s board of governors, as associate editor of Academy of Management Learning and Education, and as division chair of the Academy of Management’s Organizational Behavior Division.David Coghlan is a member of the School of Business Studies at the University of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland. His research and teaching interests lie in the areas of organisation development, action research, action learning, clinical inquiry, practitioner research and doing action research in one’s own organisation. His most recent books include Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization (co-authored with Teresa Brannick, Sage, 2001), Changing Healthcare Organisations, (coauthored with Eilish Mc Auliffe, Blackhall: Dublin, 2003) and Managers Learning in Action (eds. D. Coghlan, T. Dromgoole, P. Joynt & P. Sorensen, Routledge, 2004).Paul Coughlan is Associate Professor of Operations Management at the University of Dublin, School of Business Studies, Trinity College, Ireland where, since 1993, he has researched and taught in the areas of operations management and product development. His active research interests relate to continuous improvement of practices and performance in product development and manufacturing operations. He is President of the Board of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, and a member of the board of the European Operations Management Association.Fariborz Damanpour received his Ph.D. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Graduate School of Management at the Rutgers University in 1985. Currently he is a professor at the Department of Management and Global Business of the Rutgers Business School, where he served as the chairperson of the management department from 1996 to 2002. Prior to his academic career, he worked as an engineer, an organizational development consultant, and the manager of a start-up unit in a large organization. His primary areas of research have been management of innovation and organization design and change. His papers have been published in several management and technology management journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, Journal of Management Studies, Management Science, Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal. He serves on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, and Journal of Management Studies.Joyce Falkenberg is Professor of Strategy and Associate Dean of the School of Management at Agder University College (HiA) in Kristiansand, Norway. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1984. Her dissertation focused on strategic change and adaptation as a response to changes in the environment. Her research has continued the focus on strategic change with an emphasis on implementation. Recent work has combined this emphasis with the strategy issues of congition, strategizing, and resource based perspective. Before coming to HiA in the summer of 2003, Joyce Falkenberg was a member of the faculty at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. She taught in many international programs, including NHHs Masters of International Business; executive masters programs in Russia and Poland; and held seminars in Latvia, China, Switzerland, and Germany. Falkenberg has served on the Executive Board of the Academy of Management Business Policy Division and on the Editorial Board of the Academy of Management Review.Mary A. Ferdig Ph.D., is Director of the Sustainability Leadership Institute in Middlebury, Vermont, a research and education organization dedicated to developing leadership capacity for building a more sustainable world. Her research interests focus on leadership for sustainable organizational and social change, grounded in complexity and social constructionist perspectives. She consults with leaders in not-for-profit and business sectors as well as teaching process consultation and leadership communication in the Management and Organizational Behavior Master’s program at Benedictine University and the Public Administration and Community Services program at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. She also serves as an External Examiner in the Doctoral Program in the Complexity Management Centre, Hertfordshire University, London, U.K.Robert T. Golembiewski is Distinguished Research Professor, Emeritus at the University of Georgia, where he is part of the Public Administration program. Bob G is an internationally-active consultant in planned change, and he is the only pracademic who has won all of the major research prizes in management: the Irwin in business, Waldo Award in PA, the NASPAA Award in public policy, two McGregor awards for excellence in the application of the behavioral sciences, and the ODI Prize for global programs in planned change.