Don't Worry, I Know What I'm Doing: Talent Management Practices between South Korean and Foreign-Owned Firms

Figures & data

Table 1. Interviewee profile.

Sectors		Nationalities
Healthcare	12	Korean	39
Beverage	6	Non-Korean	16
Chemical	6
Manufacturing	20
Service	11
Types of company		Gender
Foreign	23	Male	47
Local	32	Female	8

Table 2. Interviewee characteristics.

Interviewee	Foreign/Local firm	Position	Company type	Korean/Non-Korean
H1-F	F	Executive	Healthcare
H2-F	F	Executive	Healthcare
H3-F	F	HR manager	Healthcare
H4-F	F	Assistant Manager	Healthcare
H5-F	F	President	Healthcare
H6-F	F	Senior Manager	Healthcare
H7-F	F	Director	Healthcare
H8-F	F	HR Manager	Healthcare
H9-F	F	Middle Manager	Healthcare
H10	L	Director of HR	Healthcare
H11	L	Assistant HR Manager	Healthcare
H12-F-NK	F	Head of HR	Healthcare	Hong Kong
H13-F-NK	F	Head of HR	Healthcare	Japan
M1	L	Middle Manager	Manufacturing
M2	L	Manager	Manufacturing
M3	L	Head of HR	Manufacturing
M4	L	Manager	Manufacturing
M5	L	Manager	Manufacturing
M6	L	Head of HR	Manufacturing
M7	L	Senior Manager	Manufacturing
M8	L	Manager	Manufacturing
M9	L	Vice President	Manufacturing
M10	L	Middle Manager	Manufacturing
M11	L	Middle Manager	Manufacturing
M12-F	F	HR Middle Manager	Manufacturing
M13-F	F	Senior Manager	Manufacturing
M14-F-NK	F	Director	Manufacturing	German
M15-NK	L	Assistant Manager	Manufacturing	Chinese
M16-NK	L	Senior Manager	Manufacturing	Japan
M17-NK	L	Manager	Manufacturing	Cote d'Ivoire
M18-NK	L	Assistant Manager	Manufacturing	Uzbekistan
M19-NK	L	Senior Manager	Manufacturing	USA
C1	L	Manager	Chemical
C2	L	Middle Manager	Chemical
C3	L	Middle Manager	Chemical
C4	L	Assistant Manager	Chemical
C5-F	F	Senior Manager	Chemical
C6--NK	L	Manager	Chemical	India
S1	L	Executive	Service
S2	L	Middle Manager	Service
S3	L	Manager	Service
S4	L	Assistant Manager	Service
S5-F	F	Executive	Service
S6-F--NK	F	Director	Service	USA
S7-NK	L	Senior Manager	Service	USA
S8-NK	L	Senior Manager	Service	USA
S9-NK	L	Vice President	Service	USA
S10-NK	L	Vice President	Service	USA
S11-NK	L	Senior Manager	Service	Canada
B1	L	Assistant Manager	Beverage
B2-F	F	Head of HR	Beverage
B3-F	F	Manager	Beverage
B4-F	F	Head of Marketing	Beverage
B5-F	F	Assistant Manager	Beverage
B6-F-NK	F	Head of Finance	Beverage	India

* F’ is female; ‘NK’ is non-Korean (e.g., H12-F-NK), otherwise Korean male.

Table 3. Survey respondents’ profile.

Gender		Ownership type
Male	64	Local firms	55.9
Female	36	Foreign firms	42.9
Age group		Status
Less than 30 years	15.8	CEO	2.6
31–35 years	23.4	Executives	6.5
36–40 years	27.8	Upper Managers	7.7
41–45 years	20.9	Middle Managers	52.9
46–50 years	4.4	Lower Managers	18.1
51–55 years	7.0	Entry Level	12.3
Over 56 years	0.6
Are you a leader?		Are you a talent?
Yes, I am	24.5	Yes, I am	21.4
No, I am not	75.5	No, I am not	20.8
		I do not know	39.6
		TM is not practiced	18.2

Bold indicates the majority (highest number) of respondents.

Table 4. The main findings of the qualitative study.

	Local firms	Foreign firms (USA, German, Sweden)
Understanding of TM concept	Exclusive TM	Exclusive TM
Necessity of TM adoption	USA-origin TM is not necessary	TM is necessary and essential
TM practices	Large firm) TM practices (e.g., Talent Review) are clearly implemented	TM practices (e.g., Talent Review) are clearly implemented
	SMEs) exclusive TM practices are secretly run
The most important decision-maker in TM process	Executives (hierarchical, Confucian local culture impacts on TM process)	Senior Managers

Table 5. Fast-track existence.

	Fast-Track		Total
	Yes, has	No, hasn’t
Local firms	47	38	85
	55%	45%	100%
Foreign firms	25	43	68
	37%	63%	100%

Table 6. TM evaluation-mean value.

	Ownership	N	Mean	Std. deviation
TM evaluation	Local firm	89	2.70	0.871
	Foreign firm	70	2.50	0.847

Table 7. Levene’s and T-test.

		Levene's Test for equality of variances		t-Test for equality of means
		F	Sig.	t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)
TM evaluation	Equal variances assumed	0.094	0.759	1.430	157	0.155
	Equal variances not assumed			1.435	150.119	0.153