ITauthor

I enjoy working for a company where everyone is on first name terms and you can talk to anyone at any level without having to make an appointment. I would find it very difficult to work in Korea.

Rahul Prabhakar writes:

Koreans place a lot of emphasis on title; it could be said that nowhere in East Asia does title hold more prominence than in Korea. Try addressing a Korean colleague of the same age group but higher designation with his name, and chances are you'll be asked to prefix a title. If you don't use a title to address someone higher in the value chain, Koreans are likely to consider you disrespectful or discourteous.
If the distance between top- and bottom-level organizational hierarchies is wide, technical communicators should resort to formal communication. If the culture encourages a flat organization, the communication automatically becomes less formal. In order to succeed in a Korean company, you must consider the hierarchy between you and the final decision maker. Allow everybody in the middle to give their opinion and be included as much as possible.
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Korean companies don't understand why technical communication is important. For them, it's always an afterthought or an additional burden.