{"id":14772,"date":"2024-03-01T01:20:11","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T09:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/?p=14772"},"modified":"2026-02-17T14:29:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T22:29:19","slug":"julie-nelsen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/2024\/03\/01\/julie-nelsen\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea Trip Sparks New Research for Marketing Professor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Julie
Nelsen and colleagues make \u201cfinger heart\u201d hand gesture on a beach in South Korea.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

When marketing professor Julie Nelsen<\/a> chose to travel to South Korea as part of a faculty development opportunity<\/a>, she admits her knowledge of the country was limited. However, after spending a few short days there, she says the trip inspired new, novel paths of research and helped create new collaborative research opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nelsen, who is also director of the Carson College\u2019s Center for Professional Sales<\/a> at WSU Vancouver, says she had never traveled to Asia before, and she saw the trip as an opportunity to be exposed to a new culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere’s just a great overall business introduction but also a cultural introduction to South Korea. As a marketing scholar, it exposed me to things I had seen peripherally,\u201d Nelsen says. \u201cI had seen the K-pop movement and heard about Korean dramas, but I hadn’t really understood it all as a marketer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Encountering new cultural, economical perspectives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nelsen says while there is not a great deal of cultural diversity in the country\u2013most non-tourists were of Korean descent\u2013 the country was extremely hospitable, even with the ever-present threat of war with North Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are technically still at war, and they have the demilitarized zone that is being patrolled by both Korean and US forces,\u201d Nelsen says. \u201cThat’s a different reality than I\u2019m used to and was extremely fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nelsen says the country was also intriguing from an economic standpoint. Following the Korean war, South Korea famously underwent a period of accelerated economic growth known as the Miracle on the Han River. By the end of WWII, Korea was among the poorest regions of the world. Today, the country is a part of G20, the premier global forum for discussing economic issues, and is known as a technological, economical, and industrial powerhouse. Nelsen saw examples of this on her trip as they had scheduled visits to headquarters of organizations like LG and Hyundai Motors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheir economy matters in the world these days,\u201d Nelsen says. \u201cThey’re a driving force behind a lot of activity in corporation, manufacturing, and innovation spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New and novel research<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With cultural exports like K-pop and Korean dramas, or \u201cK-dramas,\u201d continuing to rise in global popularity, South Korea is also becoming a giant in the world of entertainment media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is part of what inspired a vein of research Nelsen and Zandra Balbinot, a colleague she met on the trip, would dig into after they returned home\u2014how K-dramas depict women in the workplace. Nelsen says she and Balbinot found themselves watching Korean dramas to wind down from a day of tourism and were intrigued by the idea of analyzing a culture through the television programs it produces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOriginally, we were going to do something related specifically to women in the workplace in Korea,\u201d Nelsen says. \u201cBut then I started thinking it be fun to do it from the perspective of the Korean dramas and how they depict women in the workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nelsen and Balbinot\u2019s research has been accepted for presentation at the Association for International Business Conference. The two will return to South Korea in July to attend the annual event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When marketing professor Julie Nelsen chose to travel to South Korea as part of a faculty development opportunity, she admits her knowledge of the country was limited. However after spending a few short days there, she says the trip inspired new, novel paths of research and helped create new collaborative research opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":[629],"featured_media":18238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[582,425,618],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14772"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/629"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14772"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18532,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14772\/revisions\/18532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14772"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/edividend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/author?post=14772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}