The Collected Works of Chinul: The Korean Approach to Zen

The author does not tell whether his difficulties stem from the theories, the study design, or the methods of data gathering and analysis. Precisely drawn charts, graphs, multiple regressions, and incomprehensibly complex path-analysis diagrams do not help much in overcoming the problems of replicating research developed in Lansing, Michigan, and exporting it to Ulsan, Korea. There is a vast distance between the two, even though the machines and the products are very much alike. The study illustrates the perils of doing cross-national research without a great deal of very careful preparation and adaptation. It also illustrates the perils of using an attitudinal survey design that is always fixed in time and place when the research locale and its population are in a very unstable political and institutional environment. For example, the data presented here tell us that Hyundai workers at Ulsan were generally satisfied with their jobs in 1983. But four years later they had significantly changed their work situation as a result of strikes and other confrontations with their employer and its agents. Recent changes in the Trade Union Law and the Works Council Law are not predicted at all in this study and are not explained by attitudinal data gathered on the employer's home turf, an institution resembling a Korean military establishment with a military-style supervisory system.