Transnational Management: Identity and Nunchi in Multinational Corporations

A case study of a particular population, transnational businesspeople working in German multinational corporations in Seoul, and examines nunchi (emotional intelligence), an important non-Western organizational phenomenon, and the role of symbols of identity in the recontextualisation process of adopting nunchi into strategic self-presentations.

Consequently, this book will be a unique source for both scholars and practitioners, as its ethnographic approach provides enlightening new insights contributing towards an improved understanding of nunchi and identities in transnational management. In contributing a challenge to peculiar perspectives by taking a non-Western concept and exploring its relevance, this book provides a unique picture of nunchi and identity than has previously been presented in management studies. Thus, this book implies that nunchi is not a fixed object but a strategic tool, which allows transnational businesspeople to promote their individual drives, which leads on to new forms of self-presentation tailored to transnational business.

Steffen Kromer is a business anthropologist and management consultant, who earned his PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London.