Journal Article Summary

This Journal Article was published in the International Consortium for Alternative Academic Publication (ICAAP) in December 2001 by Jeong-Kyu Lee; in addition, this article was introduced on the website of the United Nations. The author of this paper investigated the role Confucianism played in the development of the leadership and organizational culture of South Korean Higher Education. Essentially, Dr. Lee finds that the leadership and organizational structure of Higher Education in Korea is hierarchical, authoritative, age-based, male-dominated, and collectivistic academically. All the findings are Confucian values, which the author claims to be of great influence and impact on the South Korean Higher Education leadership and organizational

Going over some historical events, like the period of Three Kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula, the author clearly shows how Chinese classics, like the Analects, and Confucian values came to Korea and became adopted. Using this information, the author logically creates a transition to how this effects the leadership and organizational culture in the modern-day Korean Higher Education system. Later, in the paper, the author describes how as the Confucian values became so strongly integrated into the society; the spread of higher education became increasingly widespread for the masses. As higher education was usually only for the socially elite males in Korea, the Confucian value of self-cultivation and rigorous education made it so that many groups donated towards higher education for the masses. To add to this, the paper explains how the Confucian values of everyone having their place in society and position influenced the education system to be extremely hierarchical, especially in regards to age. So, one would address an elder instructor using honorifics. In addition, even if one is of a higher position in the higher education system hierarchy, if he or she is younger than the person being addressed who is of lower position, they would have to address the person with