Googlers Googling North Korean cultural values, take note: There aren’t any (at least that I’ve been able to find) within the academically sourced frameworks.
And if you’re familiar with those frameworks, you will understand why.
North Korea is a closed society, so the only say to get in and do the research would be to sneak in and get out quickly.To illustrate, Hofstede’s values, derived in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were based on an analysis of IBM employee attitude surveys from the countries where IBM offices existed at the time.
Some educated guesses
The best we can do, if we want to make some educated guesses about North Korea’s cultural values, is to look at South Korea.The two societies were more homogenous before being separated shortly after World War II, with the North falling under Soviet-sponsored communist control (CIA World Factbook, 2013). The cross-cultural researchers that I’ve read seem to be of the shared opinion that changes in societal culture take a long time to occur, a long time being somewhere between several decades and a couple hundred years.
While the two societies do have a common cultural heritage – the impact of the changes that have been imposed on North Korea post-WWII is too unwieldy to imagine with regard to cultural variables. Much of the society is starving and has little or no electricity – and, for women, in particular – career paths may lead to human slavery,(CIA WorldFactbook, 2013).
While Hofstede’s values are available for South Korea, Project GLOBE’s practices and values are far more recent (House, 2004). South Korea isn’t a terrific basis for looking at North Korea’s cultural values, but it’s about the best we can do at present.
So here we go.
Slide #1
If you’re new to Project GLOBE and, in particular, how I have been presenting its values-versus-practices distinction, this slide will be confusing. If that’s the case, just direct your attention to the top-most yellow bar. Put simply, the length of this bar just means that, among all nine GLOBE practices dimensions, the U.S. and South Korea are most different on In-Group (Family) Collectivism (IngC).
In high-IngC societies, loyalty to family and other “in-groups” is extremely important. Slide #1 shows us that South Korea, desiring only to be a little lower in IngC, is fairly satisfied on that dimension. The U.S., in contrast, would like to be higher than it is.
Slide #2
Here, we see that the U.S. ranks fairly low among Project GLOBE societies on IngC. (Data were available for 61 societies). South Korea, in contrast, falls in the upper half among GLOBE societies on this variable. So, we conclude from slides #1 and #2 that South Korea is not only substantially higher than the U.S. on IngC, the society is also satisfied with its level of IngC
Slide #3
Here, we just have another illustration confirming the data shown in Slide #2 – and also illustrating (on the left side) examples of extremes in desiring more or less InGC.
Slide #4
Again in context with some of the other Project GLOBE countries, we can look at cultural distance and see that the U.S. and South Korea are very different on their levels of satisfaction with IngC.
Implications
The U.S.’s desire for higher IngC is a puzzle. I continue to suspect that it indicates a desire for a more equitable work-life balance in the direction of more time for family and personal interests – e.g. more time to actually be off-work and not on-call physically or via mobile device. Can’t be sure… it’s just my leading theory at the moment.
North Korea
Regarding North Korea, we have to speculate as well. Certainly, with a government that does such a horrid job of looking out for its citizenry, we should expect reliance on in-groups to be essential for survival – so North Korea is probably very high on IngC.
Since reliance on in-groups is likely to be a survival-necessitated, fall-back position, North Koreans may wish the need for it were not so great. To those of us who live outside of that closed society, it’s obvious that the country’s dictatorial leadership – with its isolationist policies – is responsible. But expressing or even thinking such a view would be heretical and dangerous for those living within the country. In fact, North Koreans seem to be socialized not only not to hold their government responsible for harsh living conditions – but to show gratitude to their dictator when anything at all goes well.
For example, a few years back, an Oprah episode focused on a group of doctors who had risked their lives to cross into the country undetected and perform badly needed surgery. While one might think that patients and their families would be grateful to the surgeons – and perhaps they were – instead, the patients and families turned in gratitude to a portrait of their dictator and bowed.
Chilling.
That story, moreso than speculation about North Korea’s societal variables, illustrates how important face-saving must be to the country’s leadership. In that sense, it lends credence to the argument that Kim Jon Un’s recent posturing is a within-country impression management strategy more than a genuine attempt to execute his delusions of putting the U.S. in its place.
However, we just don't know how far he will go to enhance his image among his own people.
For U.S. policy-makers wishing to de-escalate heightening tensions, solutions that allow Kim Jon Un to save face among his people should remain on the list. If he realizes that he's backing himself into a corner with no escape, perhaps he would welcome a solution that lets him claim victory at home while stepping down from the world stage.
But he would have to think – and be able to claim to his people – that it was his idea to start with. It's probably wishful thinking, but perhaps a short-term solution that averts a nuclear incident would also buy him some time to grow up.
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