Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2020-10
The Double Edge of Professional Agency: The Contradictory Roles of Human Resource Professionals in the Implementation of the Parental Leave Policy in South Korea
Why do organizations respond differently to social policies? This is an important question because it gives us a clue as to why social progress is often slow even with successful legislation. We argue that HR professionals’ conflicting roles within organizations affect modes of organizations’ compliance with a law because HR professionals are expected to adjust legal pressure to business interests when translating external requirements into internal policies. How they manage this challenge depends on variation in the development of different dimensions of their professional agency: formalization and substantive empowerment. We demonstrate empirically this argument by taking the case of South Korea’s parental leave policy. Using workplace-level data, we find that the presence of formal HR structures predicts that minimal compliance is more likely than is noncompliance, but is less likely than is maximal compliance, and that substantively empowered HR professionals contribute to making both compliance and maximal compliance more probable.
AckerJoan. 1990. “Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations.” Gender & Society4(2):139–58.
2.
AkgündüzYusuf E.PlantengaJanneke. 2013. “Leisure Smoothing: An Alternative Approach to Analysing Care Policy.” Journal of European Social Policy23(4):376–89.
3.
AlbistonCatherine R.2005. “Bargaining in the Shadow of Social Institutions: Competing Discourse and Social Change in Workplace Mobilization of Civil Rights.” Law & Society Review39(1):11–50.
4.
BaekKyungminKellyErin L.2014. “Noncompliance with Parental Leave Provisions in Korea: Extending Institutional Research to a New Legal Context.” Law & Social Inquiry39(1):176–202.
5.
BaekKyungminKellyErin L.JangYongsuk. 2012. “Work–Family Policies in Korean Organizations: Human Resources Management and Institutional Explanations.” Asian Business & Management11(5):515–39.
6.
BaldwinRobertCaveMartinLodgeMartin. 2012. Understanding Regulation: Theory, Strategy, and Practice. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press on Demand.
7.
BergmanBodilHallbergLillemor R. -M.2002. “Women in a Male-dominated Industry: Factor Analysis of a Women Workplace Culture Questionnaire Based on a Grounded Theory Model.” Sex Roles46(9–10):311–22.
8.
BreenRichardKarlsonKristian B.HolmAnders. 2018. “Interpreting and Understanding Logits, Probits and other Non-linear Probability Models.” Annual Review of Sociology44:1–16.
9.
BrintonMary C.LeeDong-Ju. 2016. “Gender-role Ideology, Labor Market Institutions, and Post-industrial Fertility.” Population and Development Review42(3):405–33.
10.
BuddJohn W.BreyAngela M.2003. “Unions and Family Leave: Early Experience under the Family and Medical Leave Act.” Labor Studies Journal28(3):85–105.
11.
CastillaEmilio J.BenardStephen. 2010. “The Paradox of Meritocracy in Organizations.” Administrative Science Quarterly55(4):543–676.
12.
ChinMeejungLeeJaerimLeeSoyoungSonSeoheeSungMiai. 2012. “Family Policy in South Korea: Development, Current Status, and Challenges.” Journal of Child and Family Studies21(1):53–64.
13.
ChoiSeongsoo. 2016. “How Does Job Mobility Affect Inequality? Evidence from the South Korean Economic Crisis.” Social Forces94(3):1045–73.
14.
CooperRaeBairdMarian. 2015. “Bringing the ‘Right to Request’ Flexible Working Arrangements to Life: From Policies to Practices.” Employee Relations37 (5):568–81.
15.
DavisAmy E.KallebergArne L.2006. “Family-friendly Organizations? Work/Family Programs in the 1990s.” Work and Occupations33(2):191–223.
16.
DiMaggioPaulPowellWalter W.1983. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Collective Rationality and Institutional Isomorphism in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review48(2):147–60.
17.
DobbinFrank. 2009. Inventing Equal Opportunity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
18.
DobbinFrankKellyErin L.2007. “How to Stop Harassment: Professional Construction of Legal Compliance in Organizations.” American Journal of Sociology112(4): 1203–43.
19.
DobbinFrankSuttonJohn R.1998. “The Strength of a Weak State: The Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions.” American Journal of Sociology104(2):441–76.
20.
EdelmanLauren B.1992. “Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures: Organizational Mediation of Civil Rights Law.” American Journal of Sociology97(6):1531–76.
21.
EdelmanLauren B.2016. Working Law: Courts, Corporations, and Symbolic Civil Rights. Princeton, NJ: University of Chicago Press.
22.
EisenhardtKathleen M.1989. “Agency Theory: An Assessment and Review.” Academy of Management Review14(1):57–74.
23.
Estévez-AbeMaria. 2005. “Gender Bias in Skills and Social Policies: The Varieties of Capitalism Perspective on Sex Segregation.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society12(2):180–215.
24.
GlennPatrick H.2014. Legal Traditions of the World: Sustainable Diversity in Law. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
25.
GoodsteinJerry D.1994. “Institutional Pressures and Strategic Responsiveness: Employer Involvement in Work-family Issues.” Academy of Management Journal37(2):350–82.
26.
HannanMichael T.FreemanJohn. 1977. “The Population Ecology of Organizations.” American Journal of Sociology82(5):929–64.
27.
HuselidMark A.1995. “The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices on Turnover, Productivity, and Corporate Financial Performance.” Academy of Management Journal38(3):635–72.
28.
IngramPaulSimonsTal. 1995. “Institutional and Resource Dependence Determinants of Responsiveness to Work-family Issues.” Academy of Management Journal38(5):1466–82.
29.
KarlsonKristian B.HolmAndersBreenRichard. 2012. “Comparing Regression Coefficients between Same-sample Nested Models Using Logit and Probit: A New Method.” Sociological Methodology42:286–313.
30.
KellyErin L.2010. “Failure to Update: An Institutional Perspective on Noncompliance with the Family and Medical Leave Act.” Law & Society Review44(1):33–66.
31.
KellyErin L.DobbinFrank. 1998. “How Affirmative Action Became Diversity Management: Employer Response to Anti-discrimination Law, 1961 to 1996.” American Behavioral Scientist41(7):960–84.
32.
KimA. Eun-GiGil-SungPark. 2003. “Nationalism, Confucianism, Work Ethic and Industrialization in South Korea.” Journal of Contemporary Asia33(1):37–49.
33.
KimJungho. 2012. “Parental Leave and Female Labor Supply in Korea” (in Korean). Korea Development Research34(1):172–197.
34.
KimMijhu. 2006. “A Study on the Factors Influencing the Use of Parental Leave of Woman Laborers” (in Korean). Journal of Korean Women’s Studies22(4):157–195.
35.
KimYoung-Mi. 2017. “Rethinking Double Jeopardy: Differences in the Gender Disadvantage between Organizational Insiders and Outsiders in Korea.” Sociological Perspectives60(6):1082–96.
36.
KooJasook. 2009. “A Study on the Maternity Protection in Korean Companies: Focusing on the Adoption and Decoupling of Practices”(in Korean). Survey Research10(3):107–130.
37.
LeeHyo JooKimYoung-Mi. 2018. “The Effect of Normative Isomorphic Pressure on the Implementation of Policies on Organization Level: Focusing on Parental Leave Policy in Korea” (in Korean). Social Science Review49(1):286–307.
38.
LeeSoo-youngLeeGeun-joo. 2011. “Determinants of Female Workers’ Use of Parental Leave among Korean Private Companies: The Analysis of Employment Insurance Database” (in Korean). Ewha Journal of Social Sciences25:61–91.
39.
MeyerJohn W.RowanBrian. 1977. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology83(2):340–63.
40.
MoenPhyllisSweetStephen. 2004. “From ‘Work–Family’ to ‘Flexible Careers’: A Life Course Reframing.” Community, Work & Family7(2):209–26.
41.
MunEunmi. 2015. “Negative Compliance as an Organizational Response to Legal Pressures: The Case of Japanese Equal Employment Opportunity Law.” Social Forces94(4):1409–37.
42.
MunEunmiBrintonMary C.2015. “Workplace Matters: The Use of Parental Leave Policy in Japan.” Work and Occupations42(3):335–69.
43.
MunEunmiJungJiwook. 2018. “Change above the Glass Ceiling: Corporate Social Responsibility and Gender Diversity in Japanese Firms.” Administrative Science Quarterly63(2):409–40.
44.
NelsonRobert L.NielsenLaura B.2000. “Cops, Counsel, and Entrepreneurs: Constructing the Role of inside Counsel in Large Corporations.” Law & Society Review34(2):457–94.
45.
OliverChristine. 1991. “Strategic Responses to Institutional Processes.” Academy of Management Review16(1):145–79.
46.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 2019. “OECD Gender Data Portal.” Retrieved February 12, 2020 (https://www.oecd.org/gender/data).
47.
OstermanPaul. 1995. “Work/Family Programs and the Employment Relationship.” Administrative Science Quarterly40(4):681–700.
48.
Perry-SmithJill E.BlumTerry C.2000. “Work-family Human Resource Bundles and Perceived Organizational Performance.” Academy of Management Journal4(6):1107–17.
49.
RuhmChristopher J.1998. “The Economic Consequences of Parental Leave Mandates: Lessons from Europe.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics113(1):285–317.
50.
SiegelJordanPyunLynnCheonB. Y.2019. “Multinational Firms, Labor Market Discrimination, and the Capture of Outsider’s Advantage by Exploiting the Social Divide.” Administrative Science Quarterly64(2):370–97.
51.
SuchmanMark C.1995. “Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches.” Academy of Management Review20(3):571–610.
52.
UlrichDave. 1993. “Profiling Organizational Competitiveness: Cultivating Capabilities.” Human Resource Planning16(3):1–17.
53.
UlrichDave. 1996. Human Resource Champions: The Next Agenda for Adding Value and Delivering Results. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
54.
VaughanDiane. 1999. “The Dark Side of Organizations: Mistake, Misconduct, and Disaster.” Annual Review of Sociology25:271–305.
55.
WonSook-YeonPascallGillian. 2004. “A Confucian War over Childcare? Practice and Policy in Childcare and Their Implications for Understanding the Korean Gender Regime.” Social Policy & Administration38(3):270–89.
56.
YoonJa YoungHongMinki. 2014. “Effects of the Paid Maternity Leave Policy on Female Employment” (in Korean). Quarterly Journal of Labor Policy14(4):31–57.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
